158 REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 



615. Notliiiis" more precise than the stateineuts just quoted, every one 

 of them made by those presumably interested in, or engaged in, pro- 

 tecting the breeding islands, but without personal experience in this 

 matter, has been found as authority for the theory whicli has been so 

 diligently i^ropagated, that excessive waste of seal life results from the 

 l)ractice of pelagic sealing. 



016. The following statements, called forth by the publicity given to 

 the above-mentioned theory, though for the most part nmde by persons 

 directly interested in pelagic sealing, are given over their signatures, 

 and as the result of experience, extending in some cases over many 

 years, must be considered as of a much higher order of accuracy than 

 those above cited: 



Captain J. D. Warren, one of the pioneers of pelagic sealing, and for 

 over twenty years personally engaged in the business, says: "Indians 

 rarely lose a seal they strike, and if one escapes, it is always but slightly 



wounded My experience with White hunters is not so 



extensive as with Indians, but from what I have seen while engaged in 

 sealing, I can say that not over 6 in 100 seals killed by White hunters 



arc lost or escape Experienced hunters seldom lose a 



seal."* 



617. Mr. W. Fewings, with three years' experience of seal-hunting 

 on the Pacific coast and Behring Sea, says: "The average number 

 lost does not exceed 6 in 100, and by Indians not 6 in 1,000."* 



618. Captain H. F. Sieward, who has been two years master of a 

 sealer, employing in one year Indian hunters and in another White 

 hunters, says: "The Indians lose very few seals, for if the spear strikes 

 the seal is got, and if the spear misses, the seal of course escapes 



unhurt The seals lost by White hunters, after being shot 



or wounded, do not, on the lower coast, exceed 6 in 100, and on the 

 Alaskan coast and in Behring Sea, not over 4 in 100. On sailing I gen- 

 erally take 10 ijer cent, additional ammunition for waste shot — that is, 

 if calculating on a catch of 3,000 seals, I would take ammunition for 

 3,300 shots. That was double the excess the hunters would consider 

 necessary, and I never knew the percentage of waste shot to be used."t 



619. Captain William O'Leary, with four years' experience of sealing, 

 in which he sealed into Behring's Sea one year with an Indian crew, 

 and three with White crews, says: "My experience with Indian hunters 

 is that they lose none — at most, a few — of the seals they spear. . . . 

 The number of seals lost by White hunters does not exceed 6 in 100, 

 and many hunters lose much less than that number."^ 



Mr. W. Munsie, an owner of sealing-schooners, in' 1886, and there- 

 fore long before the question of losses by pelagic sealers had achieved 

 the notoriety which it subsequently has, writes thus to the Honourable 

 G. E. Foster, Minister of Marine and Fisheries: "Allow me to contra- 

 dict a statement made by Special Agent Tingle, of the United States 

 Treasury Department, in which he says that three-fourths of the seals 



shot in the water sink and are L-st. From the experience of our 

 106 old hunters, I maintain but a small percentage is lost in this 



way, probably not over 1 in 50. I doubt if the loss is as great 

 as that caused by the rejection of skins after being clubbed by the 

 Alaska Commercial Company on the islands, to which reference is made 

 in the tables of Elliott's report."§ 



* Parliiimeiitary Paper [C— 6131], London, August, 1890, p. 355. 



tibid., p. 356. 



t Ibid., -p. 337. 



§ Parliamentary Paper [C. — 6131], London, August ISUO, p. 36. 



