480 RESULTS. 



The epidemic theory was urged very strongly in 1891, when the 

 rookeries were found covered with dead pups; 



L. A. Notjes, p. 84. but a careful and technical examination was made 



on several of the dead bodies without discovering 

 a trace of organic disease; while starvation was so apparent that those 

 who examined them decided that it was the true cause of their death. 

 Had sickness or disease attacked the seal herd it is only reasonable to 

 suppose a few grown seals would be found dead where so many young 

 ones had died so suddenly; but the most diligent search has failed to 

 find a grown seal dead upon the islands from unknown causes. 



From the discovery of the islands until the present time the flesh of 

 the fur-seal has been the daily meat ration of the natives and of the 

 white people, and yet it is a fact that a tainted or diseased carcass has 

 never been known. 



Some of these losses were due to their perhaps too early attempts to 

 swim. When the pup is a few months old the 

 H. G. Otis, p. 87. mother seal conducts it to the water and teaches 



it to swim near the shore. If a heavy sea is en- 

 countered the weak little pup is liable to be thrown by the surf against 

 the rocks and killed, but under natural conditions and with the pro- 

 tection to the rookeries formerly enforced at the islands the losses from 

 this cause and all others combined (save alone the authorized killing) 

 amounted to an infinitesimal percentage of the whole numbers in the 

 herds. 



Another theory, equally untrue, was that an epidemic had seized the 

 herd; but investigations of the closest kind have 



J. C. Redpath, p. 151. uever revealed the death, on the islands, of a full- 

 grown seal from unknown causes. Let it be re- 

 membered that the flesh of the seal is the staple diet of the natives and 

 that it is eaten daily by most of the white employes as well; and yet 

 it is true that a sign of taint or disease has never been found on a seal 

 carcass in the memory of man. It was not until so many thousands 

 of dead pups were found upon the rookeries that the problem was solved. 



The truth is th at when the cows go out to the feeding gr< >un ds to feed they 

 are shot and killed by the pelagic hunter, and the pups, deprived of suste- 

 nance, die upon the rookeries. Excepting a few pups killed by the surf 

 occasionally it has been demonstrated that all the pups found dead are 

 poor and starved, and when examined their stomachs are found to be 

 without a sign of food of any sort. 



The resident physician, Dr. Ackerly, examined many of them and 

 found in every instance that starvation was the cause of death. 



A double waste occurs when the mother seal is killed, as the pup will 

 surely starve to death. A mother seal will give 

 z. L. Tanner, p. 375. sustenance to no pup but her own. I saw sad evi- 

 dences of this waste on St. Paul Island last season, 

 where large numbers of pups were lying" about the rookeries, where 

 they had died of starvation. 



I never heard of any disease among the seal herd, nor of an epidemic 



Danl Webster p 183 ofan y S0lt or at an y time in the history of the 

 ' islands. 



