576 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



sea, together with the supply of nourishment from the disintegration of 

 the oil-bearing tissues surrounding the ovarian and spermatic parts, 

 which begins as soon as the fish enter the streams. 



Aside from the destruction of the females and young by sealing in 

 Bering Sea, the animals are disturbed or harassed at a time when 

 they have sought seclusion to rear their young. Already a restless- 

 ness and a change in the habits of the seals have been observed which 

 are indications of the breaking up of the herd. The use of firearms 

 for killing seals in Bering Sea being prohibited by law, the spear has 

 been substituted. The silent destruction of the latter instrument does 

 not frighten the seals, and its aim is more certain and deadly than the 

 rifle or shotgun. The warning noise of the firearm renders the seals 

 more shy and wary as the season progresses, but with the spear the 

 slaughter of unsuspicious animals continues uninterruptedly from the 

 commencement to the end of the season. As a proof of this, it is only 

 necessary to cite the wonderful catch of the sealing schooners this 

 year by means of the spear. Notwithstanding the comparative unfa- 

 miliarity of most of the crews with the use of the spear, the number of 

 seals secured by the pelagic sealers was greater than ever before, and 

 the catch is almost certain to increase year by year, as the men become 

 more dexterous in handling the spear, provided the supply of seals 

 holds out. Instead, therefore, of the prohibition of firearms in Bering 

 Sea being a serious restriction on the depredations of the sealers, it 

 really aids them and renders the rookeries even more liable to rapid 

 decimation than they were under previous regulations. 



It is reported that the catch of seals by predatory sealers in 1894 was 

 in the neighborhood of 105,000. Of this number about 57,000 seals 

 were taken from the herds belonging on the Asiatic shores of the North 

 Pacific Ocean and the remainder, 48,000, from the Alaskan herd. In 

 the previous year the seals secured from the herd rendezvousing at the 

 Pribiiof Islands numbered about 36,000, and in 1892 about 25,000. Of 

 the seals from the Alaskan rookeries taken by pelagic sealers in 1894, 

 about 80 per cent were killed by vessels clearing from Victoria, B. C, 

 and 20 per cent by vessels from United States ports. 



The prohibition of pelagic sealing between May 1 and July 31, during 

 which time the seals are moving northward off the coasts of the United 

 States, British Columbia, and southeast Alaska and entering Bering 

 Sea, necessarily concentrated the operations of the sealers on Bering 

 Sea — that is, during the breeding season. The numbers of seals killed 

 beyond the 00-mile zone in Bering Sea between August 1 and August 

 15, 1894, were large, and perhaps 75 or 80 per cent were nursing females 

 that had left their pups on the Pribiiof Islands and gone for food to 

 the cod banks lying from 75 to 200 miles from the rookeries. The 

 death of a female seal under these circumstances meant also the death 

 of her young by starvation. It is therefore evident that more harm is 



