106 DESTRUCTION OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 
abundance of fur animals in the same waters, were made 
known to the occupants of those posts by the return of the 
survivors of Bering’s expedition, so active a chase was com- 
menced against the amphibia of that region, that, in the course 
of twenty-seven years, the sea cow, described by Steller as 
extremely numerous in 1741, is believed to have been com- 
pletely extirpated, not a single individual having been seen 
since the year 1768. The various tribes of seals* in the 
Northern and Southern Pacific, the walrus + and the sea otter, 
are already so reduced in numbers that they seem destined soon 
to follow the sea cow, unless protected by legislation stringent 
enough, and a police energetic enough, to repress the ardent 
cupidity of their pursuers. 
The seals, the otter tribe, and many other amphibia which 
feed almost exclusively upon fish, are extremely voracious, and 
of course their destruction or numerical reduction must have 
favored the multiplication of the species of fish principally 
preyed upon by them. I have been assured by the keeper of 
several young seals that, if supplied at frequent intervals, each 
seal would devour not less than fourteen pounds of fish, or 
about a quarter of his own weight, in a day. A very intelli- 
gent and observing hunter, who has passed a great part of his 
life in the forest, after carefully watching the habits of the 
fresh-water otter of the North American States, estimates their 
consumption of fish at about four pounds per day. 
Man has promoted the multiplication of fish by making war 
* The most valuable variety of fur seal, formerly abundant in all cold lati- 
tudes, is stated to have been completely exterminated in the Southern hemi- 
sphere, and to be now found only on one or two small islands of the Aleutian 
group. In 1867 more than 700,000 seal skins were imported into Great 
Britain, and at least 600,000 seals are estimated to have been taken in 1870. 
These numbers do not include the seals killed by the Esquimaux and other 
rude tribes. 
+ In 1868, a few American ships engaged in the North Pacifie whale fishery 
turned their attention to the walrus, and took from 200 to 600each. In 1869 
other whalers engaged in the same pursuit, and in 1870 the American fleet 
is believed to have destroyed not less than fifty thousand of these animals. 
They yield about twenty gallons of oil and four or five pounds of ivory each. 
