FISHERY INDUSTRIES. 49 
losses from seals at a minimum the fishermen work back and forth along their nets 
almost ceaselessly, day and night, taking out fish as soon as they are seen to strike 
the net, but even then the seals often beat the fisherman in the race and snatch 
the struggling fish from in front of him. It is not an infrequent occurrence for the 
fisherman to be taking out a salmon and have a seal attack the other end of the same 
fish. In one or two instances fishermen have narrowly escaped being bitten by the 
savage attacks of the seals on fish that were being taken from the nets. Were it not 
for the continued efforts of the fishermen to remove the fish from the nets they would 
have none remaining when it came time to take up the nets. 
Besides the fish mutilated, the seals occasionally damage the nets by becoming 
entangled in them. Sometimes the animal is thus drowned, but more often it escapes, 
leaving a rent in the net from a few meshes to a fathom or two. 
Seals frequently enter fish traps and there feed upon the fish, but as a rule they find 
their way out, although occasionally one is captured. 
As to what other fish are taken in considerable numbers by seals remains to be 
worked out. Seals are at times reported as abundant about the herring schools, and 
when the eulachon go up the rivers they are there in abundance. 
Following the finding of the damage the seals do, there naturally comes the question 
of how to reduce their numbers most effectively and with the minimum expense. To 
find some commercial use for the animals and thus cause the prosecution of their 
destruction to a profitable end would be far preferable to any bounty system or Govern- 
_ menthunter. In consideration of this, the writerthas several times been in conference 
with a person who for a time considered undertaking the extensive capture of these 
mammals provided a reasonable market could be assured, but after some little cor- 
respondence, the matter was dropped, as he was unable to find a sufficient market to 
warrant his undertaking the enterprise extensively. At present the prices for skins 
and the oil are not sufficient to cause the animals to be hunted determinedly and the 
few skins that are shipped out are mainly obtained by the natives, some of whom like 
seal meat for food, and who save the skins when the animals are killed. They make no 
attempt to save the oil for sale. There are probably more sealskins worked up into 
moccasins by the natives and sold to tourists or sent to the States than are shipped out 
as whole skins. 
If a bounty system is to be effective, the bounty must be of sufficient size to cause 
decided efforts to be made to kill the animals, and in order for the bounty to be paid 
there must be some essential portion of the animal produced as evidence of its having 
been killed. To accomplish this the animal must be recovered, and in the case of 
hair seals therein lies the difficulty, for by the methods so far used to kill them in this 
region only a very small percentage can be recovered. For it to be sufficiently profit- 
able to warrant persons engaging in the work of hunting them fora bounty, it at present 
seems that the bounty would have to be a very large one unless better methods 
are found for killing and recovering the animals. By some it is thought that even a 
small bounty would cause efforts to be made to kill and recover the few possible, count- 
ing whatever was made in that way pure gain. If such should prove to be the case, 
this system would certainly be the proper one to adopt, but in the writer’s opinion a 
system allowing but a small bounty would be ineffective. A desultory hunt for seals 
might be made if there were a bounty of $3 per head on the animals, but unless the 
natives and others in this region feel that they can make good wages they prefer to 
remain idle rather than try to earn what little they can by any legitimate means. 
The writer has improved all opportunities to shoot seals with a high-power rifle and, 
with the assistance of others, a considerable number of the animals were killed, but 
not one floated or struggled on the surface long enough to permit of its recovery. 
86497°—17 20 
