PELAGIC SEALING THE SOLE CAUSE OPINIONS. 305 



PELAGIC SEALING THE SOLE CAUSE. 



Opinions. — A merican Commissioners. 



Page 177 of The Case. 



Having answered the first of the two queries relating to conditions 

 of seal life at the present time, the secoud becomes 



important, It is : Has the decrease in numbers Report of American Com- 

 been confined to any particular class of seals, ™£™»«™>2>- sa of lhe 

 or is it most notable in any class or classes'? In 



answer to this it is our opinion that the diminution in numbers began 

 and continues to be most notable in female seals. 



As a matter of fact, there is sufficient evidence to convince us that 

 by far the greater part of the seals taken at sea 

 are females; indeed, we have yet to meet with Report of American Com- 

 any evidence to the contrary. The statements of n cSS! Mr ' ,P ' 

 those who have had occasion to examine the catch 



of pelagic sealers might be quoted to almost any extent to the effect 

 that at least 80 per cent of the seals thus taken are females. On one 

 occasion we examined a pile of skins jacked out at random, and which 

 we have every reason to believe was a part of a pelagic catch, and 

 found them nearly all females. When the sealers themselves are not 

 influenced by the feeling that they are testifying against their own in- 

 terests they give similar testimony. The master of the sealing schooner 

 J. G. Swan declared that in the catch of 1890, when he secured several 

 hundred seals, the proportion of females to males was about four to one, 

 and on one occasion in a lot of sixty seals, as a matter of curiosity he 

 counted the number of females with young, finding 47. 



The decrease in the number of seals is the re- Report of American Con- 

 sult of the evil effects of pelagic sealing. nissioners^. 379 of The 



0(186* 



Opinions. — Dr. Allen. 



Page 177 of The Case. 



13. From the foregoing summary it is evident that the decline in the 

 number of the killable seals at the Pribilof rook- 

 eries and the immense decrease in the total num- , ^^Iio^jPi'i' A ' Al ~ 

 ber of seals on the Pribilof Islands are not due to e ' h p ' ' 

 any change in the management of the seal herd at the islands, but to 

 the direct and unquestionably deleterious effects of pelagic sealing. 

 At the islands the killing is regulated with reference to the number of 

 killable seals on the rookeries; the designated quota is limited to non- 

 breeding young males, and every seal killed is utilized. The killing, 

 as thus regulated, does not impair the productiveness of the rookeries. 

 In pelagic sealing the slaughter is indiscriminate and unlimited, and 

 a large proportion of the seals killed are lost. The catch also consists 

 almost wholly of breeding females, which at the time of capture are 

 either heavy with young or have young on the rookeries depending 

 upon them for sustenance. Thus two or more seals are destroyed to 

 every one utilized, and nearly all are drawn from the class on which 

 the very existence of the seal herd depends. 

 20 BS 



