CAUSE OF DEATH OF PUPS. 481 



So, too, is revolting the slaughter of the female seal that has given 

 birth to her pup and gone out into the sea to find 



food to sustain the lives of both of them. She T, T. Williams, p. 503. 

 leaves her pup on shore, a helpless, tiny thing, soft 



and pulpy, and only able to wriggle and bark. Nature has taught her 

 to recognize it among hundreds of thousands by its plaintive bleat, and 

 the eagerness with which she rushes to its side when she comes ashore 

 shows how much she loves to fondle and care for it. If the mother is 

 killed the pup will linger on for a time, only to die of starvation in the 

 end, or, because of weakness, be dashed to pieces in the first storm. 

 Thousands of these orphan pups are found along the coast after a se- 

 vere storm, dead, because they had not sufficient strength to exist in 

 their natural element. Had their mothers been spared till it was time 

 for the pups to take to the water and live on fish of their own catching, 

 no storm that ever raged in the Arctic Ocean could disturb them. The 

 seal pup can live a long time without food, which is a wise provision of 

 nature, because the mother often has to go a very long distance to fish, 

 but after a few days, if the mother does not return, the pup's vitality 

 becomes exhausted and it dies. 



If the mother of a young seal is killed the pup is very likely to die. 

 It will be so weak that the first storm will dash it 



ashore and kill it, or it may die of starvation. I t. t. Williams, quoting 

 have seen pups hardly larger than a rat from lack Capt. Olsen, p. 505. 

 of nourishment. A starved or neglected orphan 



pup is nearly sure to die. At one storm the natives found over three 

 hundred pups w;tshed ashore in a little cove, and the water around was 

 full of dead pups. It is certain that nearly all the dead pups were 

 orphans. The female seal when suckling her young has to go out into 

 the ocean in search of food, and it is those females, or females on the 

 way to the breeding grounds to give birth to the young, that we kill in 

 the Bering Sea. 



31 b a 



