SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE. 277 



Capt. Carthcut- («'&<>?., p. 404), a master mariner, engaged in hunting 

 the fur-seals for 10 years, extending from 1877 to 1887, during the latter 

 part of the time in Bering Sea, speaks on his personal knowledge, and 

 makes a valuable contribution to the knowledge which we have upon 

 the subject. One of the reasons which he assigns for the great slaughter 

 of female seals is that maturity makes them tame and easily approach- 

 able. He says : 



About 80 per cent of the seals I caught in the Bearing Sea were 

 mothers in milk, and were feeding around the fishing banks just north 

 of the Aleutian Islands, and I got most of my seals from 50 to 250 

 miles from the seal islands. I don't think I ever sealed within 25 miles 

 of the Pribilof Islands. They are very tame after giving birth to 

 their young, and are easily approached by the hunters. When the 

 females leave the islands to feed, they go very fast to the fishing 

 banks, and after they get their food they will go asleep on tbe waters. 

 That is the hunter's great chance. I think we secured more in propor- 

 tion to the number killed than we did in the North Pacific. I hunted 

 with shotgun and rifie, but mostly with shotgun. Seals were not 

 nearly as numerous in 1887 as they were in 1877, and it is my belief 

 that the decrease in numbers is due to the hunting and killing of 

 female seals in the water. I do not think it possible for seals to exist 

 for any length of time if the present slaughter continues. The killing 

 of the female means death to her born or unborn pup, and it is not 

 reasonable to expect that this immense drain on the herds can be con- 

 tinued without a very rapid decrease in their numbers, and which 

 practically means extermination within a very few years. 



Christ Clausen (ibid., p. 319), a master mariner, was engaged in 

 seal hunting as mate of the British schooner C. H. T upper, in 1889. 

 He resides at Victoria, British Columbia, and also was navigator in 

 the British schooner Minnie. His testimony is worth reproducing 

 somewhat extensively. Unless willful perjury be attributed to him, 

 his testimony, based on actual observation and experience in the busi- 

 ness of slaughtering seals, should be accepted as conclusive on several 

 of the points under consideration: 



The Indian hunters, when they use spears, saved nearly every one 

 they struck. It is my observation and experience that an Indian, or a 

 white hunter, unless very expert, will kill and destroy many times 

 more than he will save if he uses firearms. It is our object to take 

 them when asleep on the water, and any attempt to capture a breach- 

 ing seal generally ends in failure. The seals we catch along the coast 

 are nearly all pregnant females. It is seldom we capture an old bull, 

 and what males we get are usually young ones. I have frequently 

 seen cow seals cut open and the unborn pups cut out of them and they 

 would live for several days. This is a frequent occurrence. It is my 

 experience that fully 85 per cent of the seals I took in Behring Sea 

 were females and had given birth to their pups and their teats would 



