300 CAUSE. 



number of fur-seals killed is infinitely small compared with the number 

 killed in pelagic sealing; so small, in fact, as to have no appreciable 

 effect upon seal life upon the islands. 



I am told that the diminution of seal life has been attributed to raids 

 by poachers upon the seal islands. Very few of 

 Gustave Niebaum, p. 78. these have occurred, and the number of skins ob- 

 tained by the poachers has been comparatively 

 infinitesimally small. I think the whole number obtained by them in 

 this way does not exceed 3,000 or 4,000 skins. We were accustomed 

 always to maintain a patrol and guard upon the rookeries whenever 

 the weather was such that poachers could land upon them, and upon 

 the least suspicious circumstances measures were taken to forestall any 

 attempts to steal the seals. The sea is usually rough in the fall when 

 poachers try to get in their work; the shores are, at most places, inac- 

 cessible from boats, and the natives are vigilant and active. If marine 

 hunting is stopped, they can be safely trusted to defend the property 

 upon which their very existence is dependent, as they have done re- 

 peatedly, against any single schooner's crew. 



There were occasional raids made upon the islands [Commander] by 

 poachers during our twenty years' lease, but they 

 Gustave Niebaum, p. 203. were generally unsuccessful in killing any consid- 

 erable number of seals, and their raids had no 

 appreciable effect ipon the rookeries. 



During those years the lawless occupation of wai coaching was in 



its infancy. Marauding vessels, it is true, ap- 



H. G. Otis, p. 86. pcared from time to time in these waters, but the 



islands were so well guarded that during my term 



of office there never was a successful raid or landing upon either of the 



islands of St. Paul or St. George, The only landing upon any island 



of the group was made in June, 1881, upon the unoccupied island of 



Otter (not included in the lease), as described in my special report to 



the Secretary of the Treasury, dated July 4, 1881. On that occasion a 



predatory schooner succeeded in landing a boat's crew, who killed forty 



or fifty seals, when they were driven off by a boat sent by me for that 



purpose from St. Paul, about 6 miles distant. 



Until 1884 sealing schooners were seen but very seldom near the 

 islands or in Bering Sea, and the few seals taken 

 J. C. Eedpath, p. 151. by the hunters who raided the rookeries occasion- 

 ally are too paltry to be seriously considered, be- 

 cause the raids were so few, and the facilities for taking many seals off 

 so utterly insignificant. 



There was but one successful raid on the rookeries while I was upon 

 the island, and but 125 seals were killed. 1 do 

 T. F. Ryan, p. 175. not consider that raids on the rookeries have any- 

 thing to do with the decrease of the number of 

 seals. 



While I was on the islands there were no raids 

 B.F. Scnbner,p. 90. on the rookeries, and seal life was never depleted 

 at that time by such means. 



