416 ORAL ARGUMENT OF FREDERICK R. COUDERT, ESQ. 



These are some of tlie clianees that an animal lias for its life. 



We are informed that it has been learned by experience tliat seals may easily be 

 lost if shot in the neck, as in this case the mnscnlar contraction of the body often 

 forces most of the air from the lungs, and the carcase then may sink much more 

 rapidly than usual. 



Ilow often these animals may be shot in the neck is apparent when 

 yon consider that the head is the part which is most exposed in many 

 cases, so that you have all these chances of escape for the seals. In 

 the first i)lace he may escape as a carcase, dead, and go to the bottom, 

 when he does no good to anybody, or he may be badly wounded, or 

 sntticiently wounded, simply, to escape. 



That there are some lost in this way, of course is admitted. How 

 many, is the question? As I have said, 50 or 60 per cent is the pro- 

 portion stated by us of those lost. The British Commissioners pro- 

 duce authority to show the number is much smaller; but when the 

 Members of this High Court read the testimony, they will find that 

 the pelagic sealers, when they talli of losing the seals that they shoot, 

 as a general rule, and almost in every case only speak of the seals that 

 tliey kill; that is to say, they shoot a seal and they lose it, and they 

 call tliat a loss; but they say when they wound them slightly, — they 

 get well, — no doubt, they get well. I do not think we are bound to 

 accept their theory; but, certainly, some do get well because they are 

 found with shot in their skins on the Pribilof Islands. But the 

 gravity of tlie wound is a matter as to which opinion is absolutely 

 worthless. It is enough to say that many of them are wounded, and 

 some of tliem must naturally die. 



Judge J. G. Swan of Port Townsend, Washington, is cited by the 

 British Commissioners at section 023, he writes as follows : 



I have seen several Makah Indians who have been here, and they tell me that 

 Indians lose very few seals, whether they spear or shoot thom, as they are always 

 so near the seals such times that they can receiver them before they sink. Captain 

 Lavender, formerly of the Schooner "Oscar and Hattie'', who is a very fine shot, 

 told me that he secured ninety-five seals out of every hundred that he shot. 



Kow here is a very fine shot, an exceptional shot, who gets 95 out of 

 those that he kills, not that he shoots at. You will find that running 

 all the way through. He says that "poor hunters, of which he had 

 several on his vessel" — of course he had; he was bound by the laws to 

 have them : 



Would fire away a deal of ammunition and not hit anything, but would be sure 

 to report on their return to the vessel that they had killed a seal each time they 

 tired, but that all the seals sank except the few they brouglit on board. Captain 

 Lavender was of opinion that not over 7 per cent of seals killed were lost. 



How many of the seals wounded were lost is a question as to which 

 he gives us no opinion. 



On a consultation with the members of the Sealers Association of Victoria, compris- 

 ing owners of sealing vessels and sealing captains, they called special attention and 

 invited inquiry into the matter of the number lost. They explained that when the 

 seals sink after being killed, as they often do, they sink slowly on a slant, so that it 

 is usually quite easy to gaft" iliem. They further affirmed that the result of the seal- 

 ing in 1891 was, like that in former years, to show that the loss from this cause 

 averaged below 6 per cent. 



That is not being able to recover with the gaff those that were slant- 

 ing off after being killed. 



The captain of the "Eliza Edwards", interviewed at Vancouver, stated, as the 

 result of his experience, that sealing must be learnt like any other business. That 

 green hands might lose as much as 2.5 per cent of the seals sliot. With experieaced 

 hunters the loss is very small. It might possibly amount to 5 per cent. 



