184 DECREASE OE THE ALASKAN SEAL HERD. 



Increase of seal- sources/ the vessels had increased from two m 



iiig fleet. 



1879 to sixteen in 1880 ; up to 1885 the number 

 of vessels varied from eleven to sixteen anniially. 

 Besides this it will be shown, subsequently, that 

 the hunters em^^loyed on these vessels during the 

 period from 1880 to 1885 were principally 

 Indians, and that their method of taking seals, 

 though injurious, is not nearly as destructive of 

 life as that employed by other hunters. In 

 1886, the year when the decrease in the seal 

 herd was first noticed along the coast, the fleet 

 increased from fifteen vessels to thirty-four, and 

 over thirty-eight thousand skins Avere known to 

 have been secured that year.^ In 1887 there 

 Avere forty- six vessels engaged in sealing, but a 

 less number of skins were taken. In 1888, 

 owing to the seizure of several schooners in 

 Bering Sea by the United States Government, 

 the fleet fell ofl" to thirty-nine vessels, the catch 

 being about thirty-seven thousand.^ No seizures 

 being made in 1888, the fleet increased again in 

 1889, numbering sixty-nine vessels, with a total 

 catch of over forty thousand.* Vessels having 

 been seized in 1889, the number again fell off" in 

 1890 to sixty, but the catch increased to nearly 



' Table of sealing fleet, Vol. I, p. 591. 



* Report of American IJering Sea Commissioners, pos/, p. 366. 

 ' Re])ort of American Bering Sea Commissioners, post, p. 366. 



♦ Ibid., post, p. 366. 



