SEAL HUNTING IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE. 397 



yielded to coinnierce, as are also tlse eoasts and outlying' islands of Pata- 

 gonia. Without going into <lot<iils as to tlie former abundance of fur- 

 seals in this general region, it may snftice to show that at present the 

 species is practically extinct, at least in a commercial sense. Says 

 (Japtaiu Budington (aflidavit), great numbers were formerly taken on 

 the east coast of Patagonia,; at present there are no seals there There 

 are not enongh on the Patagonian coasts to pay for hunting them. He 

 says that in 1881 he took 000 fur-seals on the Western coast, at Pictou 

 Landing. In 1889 he again visited this coast and obtained only four 

 skins. 



At Tierra del Fnego and adjacent islands he took 5,000 skins during 

 the season of 1879-'80; in 1801 -'02 he obtained only 00(>, and these came 

 from another ]>art of the coast. Formerly thousands of skins were 

 taken there, " but the animals are practically extinct there to day." 



Mr. George Comer states (aftidavit) that he si)ent the years 1879 to 

 1882 about Tierra delFuego and the coasts of Patagonia and Chile, on 

 a three years' sealing cruise. During these three years, he says, " Our 

 catch was 4,000 seals, 2,000 of which Avere taken the first year, and wo 

 practically cleaned the rookeries out." 



The testimony of Capt. Caleb Lindahl (aflidavit), a sealer of long- 

 experience, is to the same efi'ect. He states that in October, 1891, he 

 went on a sealing cruise to the South Seas, starting in sealing oft" the 

 coast of Patagonia and sealing there and in the neighboring seas till 

 the following March. He says: "The seals are nearly all killed oft' 

 down there, so that we got only about twenty skins. It is no use for 

 vessels to go there sealing any more. I was there twelve years ago on 

 a sealing expedition and the rookeries were full of seals. Now they 

 are nearly all gone. They never gave the seals a chance to breed 

 there. They shot them as soon as they came up on the rocks." 



The so-called " Cape Horn " catch, which presumably includes all of 

 the fur-seals taken oft' the coasts of southern South 

 America and the various outlying islands and archipel- '"^'^ 

 agos to the southward, from 1876 to 1892, aggregates a total of about 

 113,000 skins, varying in difterent years from about 17,500 in 1880 to 

 less than 1,000 in 1880, but averaging for the last ten years about 

 3,500 annually. (Aflidavit of Bmil Teichmann, of the Loudon firm ot 

 C. M. Lampso]! & Co.) 



LOBOS ISLAND. 



The fur-seal rookery on Lobos Island, off the mouth of the Eio de la 

 Plata and belonging to the Ecpublic of Uruguay, is one of the few 

 that have escaped annihilation at the hands of the seal-hunter. Many 

 fur-seals were taken here jnior to 1820. Captain Morrell (Voyages, p. 

 154) found men stationed there to take seals, in 1824 and Captain 

 Weddell (Voyages, p. 142), writing in 1825, refers to Lobos Island as 

 being farmed out by the Government of Montevideo for sealing pur- 

 poses, under regulations designed to prevent the extermination of the 

 seals. As evidence that the matter has been long managed with dis- 

 cretion may be cited the statistics given in the affidavits of Messrs. 

 Emil Teichmann and Alfred Fraser (of the firm of C. M. Lampson & 

 Co., of London), which show that the catch for the last twenty years 

 has averaged about 13,000 a year, or a total of some 250,000 fur-seal 

 skins. This throws into strong relief the folly of the exterminating 

 slaughter of fur-seals that has been waged unremittingly for nearly a 

 century throughout the southern seas. 



