228 Fortieth Annual Meeting 



ing an annual revenue to the Government of about $317,500. 

 That number now would yield a revenue of more than a 

 million dollars annually. 



But pelagic sealing is different. The pelagic seal hunter 

 cannot distinguish between male and female seals or seals 

 of different ages in the water; he would make no distinc- 

 tion if he could. Every and any fur-seal he sees is proper 

 spoil for him; none is allowed to escape, whatever the sex 

 or age. And experience and the records show that vastly 

 the greater part of the pelagic catch each year consists of 

 females. Every female seal killed in the open sea means 

 not only her death and that of her unborn pup but also that 

 of the pup which she leaves on the rookery when she goes 

 out in the sea to feed. Every time a female seal is killed 

 in the open sea after the first of July a fur-seal pup is left 

 to starve. Since pelagic sealing began some thirty years 

 ago hundreds of thousands of pups have starved miserably 

 on St. Paul and St. George. 



The possibility of saving these motherless pups from 

 starvation has often been considered and several attempts 

 have been made to induce them to take artificial food. All 

 such attempts failed utterly. Every pup experimented with 

 refused absolutely to take any kind of food although various 

 and ingenious devices were employed to induce or force 

 them to do so. Similar attempts with older or adult seals 

 also failed. They chafed under restraint or confinement, 

 refused any and all kinds of food, and finally died of 

 starvation. 



Apocryphal tales may be heard on the Pribilof Islands 

 of fur-seals having been tamed and living thereafter in the 

 houses of the natives of the islands. In the early seventies 

 the Alaska Commercial Company brought down from the 

 islands two immature live fur-seals, their exact age not 

 definitely known, and placed them in Woodward's Gardens 

 at San Francisco, but they died of starvation after several 

 months' incarceration, having eaten nothing during the in- 

 terval. This experiment at Woodward's Gardens, and all 



