276 EVIDENCE OF DECREASE 



and hauling grounds are bare, where but a few years ago nothing but 

 the happy, noisy, and snarling seal families eould be seen. 



####### 



The driving rookeries also necessarily have suffered, as witness the 

 difference in the catch, a drop from 100,000 to about 20,000 in 1890. 



I have been employed on the seal islands since 1882, and I have re- 

 sided upon them continuously for ten years, and 



Edward Hue/lies, p. 37. have a personal knowledge of seal life as it exists 

 on these islands and in the waters surrounding 

 them, and there is less than one-third as many se;ds coming to the 

 islands last year than there was in 1S82. The decrease in the number 

 of seals coining to the islands was first noticed and talked about in two 

 or three years after I first came to live here; and since 1887 the decrease 

 has been very rapid. 



A careful inspection of the rookeries each returning season since 1887 

 showed that the cows were getting less and less, although it was a rare 

 thing to find a cow seal that did not have a pup at her side. 



Ten or twelve years ago the rookeries and sea were full of seals, but 



now there is not a great many; we used to kill 



Jacob Kotchootvn, p. 132. 85,000 in less than two months' time on St. Paul 



Island, and our people earned plenty of money to 



buy everything they wanted, and in the winter we killed 2,000 or 3,000 



male pups for food and clothing. Xow we are not allowed to kill any 



more pups, and only 7,o00 male seals for food, and our people are very 



much worried to know what is to become of themselves and children. 



I remember the first time T noticed a decrease of seals on the rook- 

 eries, about seven or eight years ago, and the seals 

 Nicoli EruJcoff, p. 132. have become fewer every year since. We used 

 to kill 85,000 seals on St. Paul island in less than 

 sixty days' time until 1890, when they became so few we could not 

 take more than about one-fourth of that number in the same length of 

 time. 



All our people know the seals are getting scarcer every year, and we 

 - T . 7 . 7 , 7 100 think it is because of the schooners coming in and 



shooting the cows in the sea. 



About 1885 a decrease was observed, and that decrease has become 

 more marked every year from 1885 to the present 

 Aggei Kushen, p. 128. time 



There are not one-fourth as many seals now as there were in 1882, 



and our people are very much alarmed to know 



Aggei Kushen, p. 130. what is to become of them after the seals are 



killed off. If the seals decrease as fast as they 



have during the past five or six years there will be none left in a very 



short time for us to live upon. 



During the time from 1885 to 1889 there was a very marked decrease 

 in the size of the breeding grounds on St. Paul 

 Ablal P. Loud p. 38. Island, and from 1887 to 1889 I also noticed a 

 great decrease in the areas covered by the rook- 

 eries on St. George Island. 



