REPORT Oir BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 125 



457. Some evidence not without importance in this connection is 

 afforded by a comparison of the diagrams elsewhere ^iven and repre- 

 senting- the number of seals killed each year on the two groups of 

 islands. Though affected by other causes as well, this number may be 

 taken in a very general way as a record of the state of the rookeries as 

 ai whole, and the corresi)ondence of the lines in the two diagrams is 

 thus significant of connection or of co-operating causes. 



(11.) — Conditions affecting the ^ea-otter and Sea-coiv, contrasted with those 



affecting the Fur-seal. 



458. It has often, but incorrectly, been stated that the fur-seal of the 

 North Pacific is in danger of "extermination" if measures be not taken 

 to preserve it. The question is, however, not one of extermination, if 

 by that term the extinction of tlie species is meant. The breeding Col- 

 onies of the analogous species in the Southern Hemisphere, once 

 exploited and harried in every conceivable way, aiul without law or 

 hindrance of any kind for over fifty years, chiefly by New England ves- 

 sels, have, in no known instance, been absolutely destroyed. Long 

 before the point of extermination is reached the killing of tlie seals, by 

 whatever method practised, ceases to pay. Extermination is finan- 

 cially impossible, and therefore need not be feared. This is well enough 

 understood by those best informed on the subject, and it is no senti- 

 mental dread of the extinction of a species which appeals to the imagi- 

 nation of the persons immediately interested in the breeding ishinds, 

 but rather the practical destruction of their profitable monopoly of the 

 sealing business of the North Pacific. Depletion, or great reduction in 

 numbers, together with changes in habits of life, such as have been 

 already indicated, are sure to be the result of continuous indiscriminate 

 and unrestricted slaughter and hunting of the fur-seal, but not exter- 

 mination. To precisely what point the diminution in numbers of the 

 fur-seal might go before the increased average price of the skins ceased 

 to compensate for the reduced aggregate number taken, it is im[)ossi- 

 ble to say, but that such a point would eventually be reached is proved 

 by all experience. This experiment, however, it is hoped, is one which 

 need not be tried, for, as already made apparent, the fur-seal, by the 

 luiture of its life and habits, offers peculiar facilities for the exercise of 

 a rational protection under which it may remain a source of profit to 

 the hunter, while at the same time affording a continuous yield of skins 

 intrinsically valuable. 



451). From this point of view, the sea-otter [Enhydra marina) is an 

 interesting case in point. This animal has played a prominent i)nrt in 

 the discovery and history of the North Pacific. Its skin was highly 

 valued long before that of the fur-seal was considered of any worth, 

 and owing to its intrinsic value as an article of dress, its cost has con- 

 tinued to increase in a greater or less degree with its increasing scarcity, 

 so that at the present time skins of the first quality are worth in London 

 700 to 1,000 dollars each. Surely, if it were possible to exterminate a 

 fur-bearing animal of this kind, the sea-otter should long ago have met 

 Avith that fate, yet it has been hunted for more than a hundred years, 

 and is still a chief object of ])ursuit of many hundreds of natives. 



460. Originally, this animal frequented a large part of the avcsc 

 coast of North America, together with the east coast of Asia, and all 

 parts of the Aleutian, Pribyloff', Commander, and other islands. Its 

 limits have now been much reduced, so that it is rarefy found on the 

 coast of British Columbia or anywhere to the south of Sitka, and has 



