REPORT UPON THE CONDITION OF THE FUR-SEAL ROOKERIES 

 OF THE PRIBILOV ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 



By Henry W. Elliott, 



Special Agent, Treasury Department. 



Cleveland, Ohio, November 17^ 1890. 



Sir : On the 7th of last April I received from your hands my appoint- 

 ment as the special agent under an act of Congress, approved April 5, 

 1890, which orders and provides for a thorough examination into the 

 present status of the fur-seal industry of our Government as embodied 

 on the seal islands of Alaska, so as to make known its relative condi- 

 tion now as compared with its prior form and well being in 1872, and 

 for other kindred lines of inquiry. 



I may as well frankly confess at the outset that I was wholly unaware 

 of the extraordinary state of affairs which stared me in the face at the 

 moment of my first landing last spring on the seal islands of Alaska. 

 I embarked ujiou this mission with only a faint apprehension of view- 

 ing anything more than a decided diminution of the Pribilov rookeries, 

 caused by pelagic sealing during the last five or six years. 



But, from the moment of my landing at St. Paul Island, on the 21st 

 of last May, until the close of the breeding season, those famous rook- 

 eries and hauling grounds of the fur seal thereon, and of St. Greorge 

 Island, too, began to declare and have declared to my astonished senses 

 the fact that their utter ruin and extermination is only a question of a 

 few short years from date, unless prompt and thorough measures of 

 relief and protection are at once ordered at sea and on land by the 

 Treasury Department, and enforced by it. 



Quickly realizing after my arrival upon these islands that a remark- 

 able change for the worse had taken place since my finished work of 

 1874 was given to the public in that same year, and the year also of 

 my last .survey of those rookeries, I took the field at once, carrying 

 hourly and daily with me a series of notebooks opened under tlie fol- 

 lowing heads : 



I. The "rookeries," their area, position, and condition in 1872-1874, 

 and 1890. 



II. The "hauling grounds," their appearance in 1872-1874 and 1890. 



III. The method of "driving," and taking fur seals in 1872-1874, 

 and 1890. 



IV. The selection of skins, grade, and supply iu 1872-1874 and 1890. 



V. Character, condition, and number of natives in 1872-1874 and 

 1890. 



VI. Conduct of native labor and pay in 1872-1874 and 1890. 



To these heads I add the following sections, the whole series making 

 up my report in the order as they are here given : 



VII. The protection and preservation of these fur-bearing interests 



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