314 CAUSE. 



Years ago seals were very plentiful from 5 to 10 miles from the shore. 

 I could see them all around in bunches of from 

 Charlie, p. 304. ten to twenty each, but since the white man has 



commenced to kill them with the rifle and shot- 

 gun (in the last five or six years) they have decreased very rapidly. 



Fur-seals have decreased very rapidly during- the last five years, and 

 t- -7- ™ • 7 ■ ,v , i we believe it is due to the large number of vessels 

 n, 219. engaged m hunting them at sea. 



Have noticed the seal are decreasing very fast the last four years ; 

 too many schooners arc hunting them in the open 

 S. Chin-lcoo-Un, p. 257. waters f the Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea. 



The last five years fur-seal have been growing very scarce, and it is 

 hard to get any now. There are too many white 



William Clark, p. 293. men with schooners hunting them off Uixons En- 

 trance, and unless it is stopped the seal will soon 

 be all gone. 



Seals are now very scarce and wild along the coast. 1 believe the 

 cause of tki s i s that white 1 ranters have been hunt- 

 Circus Jim, p. 381. ing them g0 mucll with guns> 



Seals used to be very plentiful, and I never noticed any decrease in 

 their number until white hunters commenced com- 

 Jas. Claplanhoo,p. 382. ing here and killing them with guns, about six or 

 seven years ago. Since that they have decreased 

 very rapidly and have got very shy. Our tribe used to have no diffi- 

 culty in catching 8,000 to 10,000 seals, and now we can not get a thou- 

 sand. 



I have been out sealing on the coast this spring in a schooner that 



carried ten canoes, with two hunters to each canoe. 



Jeff. Davis, p. 384. We were out three days and caught 5 seals. If 



we had been out that long six or eight years ago 



with the same crew, we would have taken between 00 and 100 seals. 



Seals are wild and shy now, and have become very scarce. I think 



the reason for this is that they have been hunted so much by white 



hunters who use firearms. 



Some years ago the fur-seal were plenty off the islands, but since the 

 schooners have hunted them they are nearly all 



Eshon, p. 280. gone and it is hard for the Indians of this village 



to get any. 



Seals are not so plentiful now as they were a few years ago. They 

 began to decrease about five or six years ago. A 

 Ellabush, p. 385. good many years ago I used to capture seals in 



the Straits of San Juan de Fuca, but of late years, 

 since so many schooners and white men have come around here shoot- 

 ing with guns, that only a few come in here and we do not hunt in the 

 straits any more, I used to catch forty or fifty seals in one day, and 

 now if 1 get six or seven I would have great luck. I have to go a long 

 distance to get seals now. Seals are wild and afraid of an Indian. 



