EXAMINATION OF CATCH OF VESSELS SEIZED. 427 



In my conversation with men engaged in seal-hunting in the open 

 water of the North Pacific and Bering Sea, I have 



not been able to get sufficient information to form Francis Tattle, p. 488. 

 a reliable estimate of the average number saved 

 out of the total number shot, nor of the percentage of females killed. 



As a rule, hunters are extremely reticent about giving information 

 on the subject to officers of the Government, but from the well-known 

 fact that the female seal is much more easily approached than the 

 male and sleeps more frequently on tbe water ami is less active when 

 carrying her young, I have no doubt that the female is the one that 

 is being killed by the hunter. 



I believe the number they secure is small as compared with the num- 

 ber they destroy. Were it males only that they 

 killed the damage would be temporary, but it is ' *' : 



mostly females that they kill in the open waters. 



It was freely admitted by the pelagic hunters with whom I conversed 



that but a very small per cent of their catch was _ _ _,„. 



i i t £ 1 j-i • i a a • *-\ • W. H. Williams, p. 93. 



males, and I found their statements m this re- ' 1 



spect verified by the dealers who bought or handled the skins and 



placed them on the market. They are known to the trade as the 



"Northwest Coast catch," and I am credibly informed that a portion of 



the skin on the belly of the female heavy with pup or giving suck to 



her young is worthless, and that this is one of the chief causes why 



they are sold so much less than prime skins in the London market. They 



also further stated that the two most profitable periods for them to catch 



seal was in the spring of the year, when the females were heavy with 



pup and frequently found asleep on the water, and in the summer, after 



the mother seal had given birth to her young and gone out into the 



sea to feed, at which time she was easily approached. 



We shot mostly females. Geo. Zammitt, p. 507. 



I never paid any particular attention as to the exact number of or 

 proportion of each sex killed in the Bering Sea, .,. 7 , „,.., 

 but I do know that the larger portion of them Mtchael **«% *•**»■ 

 were females, and were mothers giving milk. 



DESTRUCTION OF FEMALE SEALS. 



EXAMINATION OF CATCH OF VESSELS SEIZED. 



Page 206 of The Case. 



About seven years since I was oh the revenue cutter Corwin when 

 she seized the sealing schooner San Diego in Ber- 

 ing Sea. On the schooner's deck were found the Jas - H. Douglass, p. ±20. 

 bodies of some twenty seals that had recently been killed. An exami- 

 nation of the bodies disclosed that all of them, with but a single ex- 

 ception, were females, and had their young inside or were giving suck 

 to their young. 



Out of some 500 or GOO skins on board I only found some 5 of the 

 number that were taken from males. I have also been present at nu- 

 merous other seizures of sealing vessels, some eighteen in number, and 

 amon« - the several thousand skins seized I found on examination that 



