CAUSE. 



lit 



Opinious. 



American 



missiouers. 



tion or in the waters adjacent to the islands; in Pelagic seaiinj 



the sole cause. 



other wordsj the sole canse of the present depleted 

 condition of the Alaskan seal herd is the result 

 of open-sea sealing. This is shown particularly 

 from the fact that the decrease has been prin- 

 cipally in the female portion of the seal herd/ 

 which will be shown later to form from eighty 

 to ninety per cent of the pelagic catch.^ That 

 such is the cause of decrease is the concurrent 

 opinion of a great number of witnesses, Indians 

 and whites, of many occupations and of varied 

 experience. The American Bering Sea Commis- 

 sioners, after a careful and exhaustive examina- 

 tion into the question of decrease, report the cause 

 to be pelagic sealing.^ Dr. J. A. Allen, after Dr.Aiieu. 

 examining and duly weighing the sources of 

 information, American, British, and Canadian, 

 declares it to be his opinion that pelagic sealing 

 has been the sole cause of the great decrease 

 in the Alaskan seal herd.* Such witnesses as Experts. 

 Thomas F. Morgan, H. H. Mclntyre, and 

 others, of twenty years' experience with the 

 Alaskan herd and thoroughly conversant with 

 all the conditions and phases of seal life, state 



1 Report of American Bering Sea Commissioners and the wit- 

 nesses examined by them, i^ost, p. 341; Karp Buterin, Vol. II, p. 103. 

 -Eeport of American Bering Sea Commissioners, jjos<, p. 367. 

 ^Eeport of the American Bering Sea Commissioners, j^osf, p. 379, 

 ^Article by Dr. Allen, Part III, Vol. I, p. 410, 

 2716 23 



