REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 157 



Captain Slicpbard, in command of the same vessel in 1887 and 1888, 

 says, on the same subject: "1 have no very accurate information on 

 which to base an opinion, but I sliould judge that they lost from 40 to 

 GO per cent, of them. I saw a good many shot from the boats as I was 

 approaching, and I think they lost two or three out of five or six that 

 I saw them shoot at."* 



Mr. W. B. Taylor, Agent of the United States Treasury Department 

 on the Pribyloff Islands in 1881, says, in answer to a question as to the 

 proportion of seals recovered by iielagic sealers, "that he does not 

 believe that more than one-lourth of the seals shot at are got, tlie rest 

 sin king." t This was before the year 1881, when but few vesKcls had as 

 yet engaged in the industry, and one only is actually known to have 

 been in Behring Sea in this year. 



Dr. H. H. Mclntyre, Superintendent of the Pribyloff Islands for the 

 lessees for a number of seasons, says : " I think not more than one-fifth 

 of those shot are recovered. Many are badly wounded, and escape." | 



Mr. G. E. Tingle, at the time Government Agent in charge of the 

 Pribyloff Islands, gave the following testimony: "Tlie logs of maraud- 

 ing schooners have fallen into my hands, and they have convinced me 

 that they do not secure more than one seal out of every ten that they 

 mortally wound and kill." He then proceeds to make some calculations 

 on the basis of this statement-. At a later stage, and when more closely 

 pressed for details, he explained the allusion above made more clearly 

 as follows: "I remember reading the log book of the 'Angel Dolly,' 

 which I captured. There was an entry in that log-book which 

 105 read as follows: ' Issued to-day to my boats 300 rounds of ammu- 

 nition, all expended, and one seal-skin;' .... another 

 entry: ' Seven seals shot from the deck, but only secured one.'"§ 



Mr. Tingle gives some further citations of a similar kind from the 

 same log, which may, however, be found at length in the "Fur-seal 

 Fisheries of Alaska." In it the captain refers to the character and 

 want of skill of his crew in language rather too forcible for citation in 

 this report. 1 1 



Mr. 0. A. Williams, a member of the Alaska Commercial Company, 

 in another part the report of the investigation on the Fur-seal Fish- 

 eries, from which the above quotations are made, refers again to the 

 same log-book as the " best testimon'y we have" on the subject of the 

 proportion of seals lost by hunters at sea, and adds that the cai)tain, 

 in the log, estimates that he got but one seal in seven shot at.ff 



Mr. H. D. Wolfe, who described himself as "in the newspaper busi- 

 ness," and stated he had some familiarity with certain parts of Alaska, 

 though claiming no experience in sealing, gives testimony to the fol- 

 lowing effect: "I think the hunting of seals in the open water is very 

 injudicious, because the hunters will shoot, and out of every 100 seals 



they shoot you will not get more than thirty If you don't 



hit a fur-seal or a hair-seal right in the head, you are not going to catch 

 him; he will sink.** 



*Ibifl., p. 230. 



t Ibid., p. 118. 



tibid., pp. 164 and 170. 



$ "Fur-seal Fisheries of Alaska," House of Representatives, 50th Congress, 2nd 

 Session, Report No. 38<S3, pp. 164 and 170. 



II See " Further Correspondence relating to Fur-seal Fisheries in Behring's Sea," 

 Wiishington, 1890, pp. 37, 38, and 332. 



U "Fur-seal Fisheries of Alaska," pp. 108 and 109. 



■•* "Report of United States Senate Committee on Relations with Canada, 1890." 

 p. 140. ' ' 



