WHITE HUNTERS. 357 



During my cruise, Which began March 9 and ended May 10, I en- 

 deavored by every means at ray command to give information in regard 

 to pelagic sealing, and while the time has been much too brief to give 

 the matter a thorough and comprehensive investigation, I have been 

 able to gather some facts. The affidavits of more than 200 men, more 

 or less familiar with pelagic sealing, were taken and transmitted to the 

 Department, and while these affidavits differ some in different locali- 

 ties, they are in the main the same and confirm my own observations. 

 Among these 200 men whose statements were taken under oath, many 

 of whom had spent their life hunting far-seal, not one was found who 

 had ever known of a fur-seal hauling out upon the land or outlying 

 rocks or islands upon the coast of California, Oregon, Washington, 

 British Columbia, or Alaska, except upon the Pribilof Islands. Neither 

 have they ever known a fur-seal to bring forth its young upon the kelp 

 or in the water or upon any of the coasts mentioned, except the Pribi- 

 lof Islands. 



My observations of the fur-seal began on the Pribilof Islands in 1869, 

 and I have visited the islands since at intervals. Last year, 1891, I 

 cruised during July and August in the vicinity of the islands, and ex- 

 amined the rookeries carefully from the vessel aud from the shore. To 

 the best of my belief there were not one-fourth part as many seals 

 there last year as when I first visited the islands in 1869 and 1870. 

 That the fur-seals both in the Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean are 

 becoming less each year there can be no doubt, and unless the indis- 

 criminate slaughter is stopped, they will soon become extinct in the 

 waters named. 



In this connection I wish to state that in my judgment by far the 

 greater slaughter and waste of seal life takes place in the Pacific Ocean, 

 where they are constantly hunted and harrassed from the time they 

 arrive off the coast of California in January until they enter Bering 

 Sea in June and July. There are this season probably 700 boats or ca- 

 noes engaged in hunting fur-seals in the Pacific Ocean along the Amer- 

 ican coasts many of them commenced hunting in January or February 

 off the coast of California and Oregon, and have kept it up continually, 

 following the seals in their movements northward until at the present 

 time they are in the Alaskan Gulf between the St. Elias region and the 

 Aleutian Island passes, toward which the seals are making their way, 

 frightened and exhausted after four months' constant effort to escape 

 the spear and shotgun of the hunter. 



The seal catch in the Pacific Ocean of the Victoria sealing fleet alone 

 up to the 12th instant was estimated at 30,000. Victor Jacobson, master 

 of the British sealing schooner Mary JEllen, one of the oldest sealers 

 out of Victoria, who furnished me with this estimate, declared it as his 

 belief, based upon what he knew about sealing, that the 30,000 seals 

 taken represent a loss of over 100,000 seals on account of the killing of 

 unborn young, and the loss by sinking and wounding past recovery. 

 The American sealers have probably been equally destructive. This 

 destruction is increasing yearly, not only in the ratio of the increase in 

 the number of vessels, but by reason of the increased experience and 

 knowledge of the habits of the seal by the hunters, and each vessel is 

 able to take more seals than formerly, notwithstanding the fact that 

 seals are becoming less each year. The route of the "fur-seal after it 

 first appears off the coast of California in January is well known ; all 

 their feeding places are known and carefully watched; indeed, the en- 

 tire route of travel is carefully watched and patrolled every day that 

 the condition of wind and waves will permit. Long practice has made 



