CONCERNING FUR SEALS 129 



of fur life. Unless the superfluous "bachelors" are killed by the 

 fur trader — I wish sentimentalists who rail against fur as vege- 

 tarians do against flesh diet would note well — unless the super- 

 fluous "bachelors" were killed, they would kill thousands of mothers 

 and thousands of pups, literally pound them and bite them to death 

 in the rough and tumble scrabble ; so the aim of the fur trade in 

 preserving seal life is to drive off these superfluous "bachelors" 

 and despatch them painlessly as possible, leaving the mothers and 

 pups in security and peace. 



Obviously, poachers shooting at every seal head in sight could 

 not distinguish mothers from "bachelors"; and every mother 

 killed left a pup to perish — in fact, often left two pups to perish, 

 for the two-year-old also needed his mother's care. Having borne 

 her young on the naked rocks, the mother put to sea, leaving the 

 youngsters sprawling in thousands. Coming back, she made 

 straight for her own offspring and fed it. How did she know her 

 own young from the thousands who were not hers ? How does 

 the sheep in a herd of 5000 know the bleat and smell of her own 

 lamb ? We have not begun to probe even the surface of knowledge 

 of fur-bearing life. 



When Henry Elliot made his survey of Seal Life in 1872-3, 

 there were between three and four million seals on the two islands. 

 When the Camp Fire Club called attention to the extinction of 

 seals in 1910-11, there were fewer than 200,000 alive, of which only 

 80,000 were mothers, 1400 necessary bulls, 150 growing bulls, and 

 the rest classified as "young." 



Ten more years would have finished the Seals as these very 

 years finished the Sea Otter. 



Briefly as I can condense it, here is the history of the Alaska Seals. 



The United States bought Alaska in 1867 for #7,200,000. 



The Russians had never been hunters of the seal. 



In 1870, the Islands were leased to the Alaska Commercial Com- 

 pany for twenty years, only 100,000 young seals a year to be killed ; 

 rent #317,500. 



