EVIDENCE OF DECREASE. 



169 



niiniber of seals to be taken had been reduced On I'ribiioi isl- 

 ands. 



to sixt\' thousand, and the time for killing limited 

 to July 20/ says: "xis a result of the enforce- 

 ment of these regulations the lessees were unable 

 to take more than twenty-one thousand two hun- 

 dred and thirty-eight seals of the killable age, of 

 from one to five years, during the season of 1890, 

 so great had been the decrease of seal life in one 

 year, and it would have been impossible to obtain 

 sixty thousand skins even if the time had been 

 unrestricted."^ He further adds that the weather 

 in 1890 was as favorable to seal driving as in 

 1889 (when one hundred thousand skins were 

 taken) and the driving was conducted as dili- 

 gently in the latter year as in the former." 

 Besides the foregoing testimony, the natives and Evidence. 

 white residents on the islands state that the seals 

 began to decrease in 1885 or 1886, and that the 

 decrease has been the most rapid in the last 

 three years.^ 



Thomas Gibson, a seal hunter since 1881, says Along the coast. 

 there has been a great decrease in the number 

 of seals in the North Pacific and Bering Sea since 



» Ani€,Y>. 153. 



» Vol. II, p. 112. 



3 Antou MelovedofF, Vol. II, p. US;" Aggie Kushlu, Vol. II, p. 128; 

 Nicoli Krukoff, Vol. II, p. 132 ; John Fratis, Vol. II, p. 108 ; Alexander 

 Hansson, Vol. II, p. 116 ; Daniel Webster, Vol. II, p. 181 ; C. L. Fow- 

 ler, Vol. II, p. 141 ; Edward Huglies, Vol. II, p. 37. 



271G 22 



