702 • ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



as a- destructive influence ou the lierd. This remedy would necessaiily 

 liave involved the dispossession of tlie new lessees of the islands — the 

 North American (!ommercial Comi)any. To the real cause of the 

 destruction of the herd he gave scant attention, overshadowing it by 

 what seemed to him the more important cause — land killing. 



After considering all the evidence in the case, the present writers are 

 forced to believe that land killing, whether close or not, has not been a 

 factor in the decline of the herd; that every year since the islands 

 came into the jiossession of the United States an adequate supply 

 of virile male life has existed on tlie breeding grounds; that tlie 

 drives, whether long or short, careful or reckless, have not tended to 

 impair the virility of the males wh'ich surs ive them; that the sole cause 

 of the decline has been the destruction of females involved in pelagic 

 sealing, the supposed inadequacy of this cause to account for the 

 decline being due wholly to exaggerated estimates of the decline based 

 not upon the condition of the breeding herd, but upon the de[)leted 

 hauling grounds. 



The tlieories and suppositions of Mr. Elliott need not be further dis- 

 cussed here and will be but briefly treated in the subsequent notes, as 

 a luller discussion of them will appear in the forthcoming final report 

 of the commission of investigation for the seasons of 1890 and 1897. 



Page 317: The reference here made to certain hauling grounds, as 

 Zapadni (Southwest Bay) and Polovina (Half- Way Point) is reiterated 

 again and again throughout the repoit. That these hauling grounds 

 as well as all others of importance were regularly driven from is clearly 

 shown by reference to the table of daily killings published in Murray's 

 Peport for 1894,Volume II, page 25S, of this series. That the seals killed 

 in the early years were largely from Zoltoi, Lukanin, and Tolstoi is true, 

 and the reason is obvious. When the breeding rookeries were in their 

 l)rime, as Mr. Elliott's own report for 18V2 shows, the shore lineof Peef 

 Peninsula was so closely occupied by the breeding seals that the bach- 

 elors could not haul out at any point except on the sands of Zoltoi, 

 which therefore became the hauling ground for practically all the bach- 

 elors belonging to the two great rookeries of Peef and Garbotch. In 

 like manner the upper shores of English and Southwest bays were 

 lined so closely with the breeding seals of Tolstoi and Zapadni that the 

 vacant sands at the foot of English Bay became the general hauling 

 ground for all the bachelors of these rookeriis. The same is true of the 

 liauling ground back of Lukanin Beach. It was a common one for both 

 Lukanin and Kitovi. The same is true of the peninsula of Northeast 

 Point. The seals could only haul at the end of the rookery, and of neces- 

 sity were only found, as Mr. Elliott says, on "the sand reach between 

 the foot of Cross Hill and the Big Lake sand dunes." 



When Mr. Elliott visited these rookeries in 1890 they had become 

 broken and dejdeted under pelagic sealing. The beaches were no longer 

 closely packed with breeding seals. As he tells us, there were seven 

 hauling grounds at Northeast Point at as many breaks in the line of 

 harems. This was also true of Peef rookery and all the others, as it is 

 to-day. Through the breaks in Peef rookery the bachelors for the most 

 part then hauled out to the parade ground of the peninsula, having 

 gradually abandoned Zoltoi. In like manner the bachelors of English 

 Bay were distributed at various points around and back of Tolstoi and. 

 Zapadni rookeries. This distribution of the bachelors, as Mr. Elliott 

 elsewhere remarks, began about 1882. At this time pelagic sealing 

 had broken the equilibrium, and under its increase the herd had begun 

 to thin out upon its breeding grounds. 



