FISHERIES OF ALASKA IN" 1907. 57 



spring months, when the ice is abundant. The otters, in playing 

 about the moving ice, are sometimes caught and crushed to death, 

 and occasionally the dead carcass is carried by the ice or the waves 

 up onto the beach. Mr. Charles Rosenberg has two or three stations 

 on the Bering Sea side of Unimak Island and covers 10 to 12 miles in 

 his patrol. During the winter of 1905-6 he secured 10 otters in this 

 way; during the winter of 1906-7, however, but 1 was found. A 

 few years ago Charles Peterson patrolled the beach from Isenbeck 

 Bay to Blind Pass. This was at one time a favorite method on the 

 islands adjacent to the Pacific side of the peninsula, upon which 

 otters which had been killed by the hunters and not secured would be 

 washed up. Certain islands were especially favored in this regard 

 owing to the prevailing winds in their direction during the hunting 

 season. 



The British Columbia sealing schooner Casco, which cruised in the 

 North Pacific Ocean this year, secured 18 sea-otter skins. (This 

 same schooner secured 12 in 1906.) Other vessels of the fleet took 20 

 sea otters, making a total catch of 38. 



Early in the year a complaint was received from Mr. Charles Rosen- 

 berg that his sea-otter stations on Unimak Island, in which he had 

 stored considerable supplies, were plundered by Japanese seal 

 hunters during his absence in the summer of 1906, and a large part of 

 the supplies stolen. 



FUR SEAL. 



The shipment of fur seal skins by the lessees of the Pribilof Islands 

 was 12,384 from St. Paul Island, and 2,580 from St. George Island, a 

 total of 14,964 skins for the group. At the time of going to press 

 with this report all, of these skins had not yet been auctioned off 

 in the London market, but estimating those unsold on the basis of 

 the prices received for the already disposed of lots, the value of 

 the total shipment from the islands amounted to $475,107. In 1906 

 there were shipped from the islands 14,476 skins, which sold for 

 $445 ,137. In addition to the above in 1 907 there were 405 fur-seal skins, 

 valued at $9,042 (this represents the price paid to the hunters for these 

 skins and not the London price) , taken in southeast Alaska, and 25 

 skins, valued at $500, taken in central Alaska, making a total of 430 

 skins, valued at $9,542, taken by Alaskan natives, which, added to 

 the skins shipped from the Pribilof Islands, makes a grand total of 

 15,394 skins shipped from Alaska. It is highly probable that the 

 skins of several hundred illegally killed fur seals are smuggled out 

 of Alaska each year despite the vigorous efforts to enforce the law 

 forbidding such shipments. 



Aside from the Pribilof Islands, the Indians of Sitka are the only 

 Alaskan natives who engage actively and as a regular business in the 



