192 Sport and Life. 



To the writer, who has no interest of any sort or kind connected 

 with sealing, but who saw a good deal of what was going on on 

 the Pacific coast, the conflicting character of the evidence collected 

 together by the commissioners deputed to examine into all the facts 

 of pelagic sealing, was simply incredible. Never was black painted 

 a more virgin white, never did white assume such dark hues. 



There is one very regretable feature about the British side of 

 the question, which is that it is antagonistic to all the humane 

 considerations connected with seal life. Pelagic sealing* is a cruel 

 and most wasteful method of obtaining peltry which can be secured 

 by " land killing " at the rookeries without inflicting suffering and 

 without any appreciable waste. Those who dispute this do so 

 either from ignorance of the true facts or from interested motives. 

 This being the writer's firm conviction, he is unable to agree 

 with the reported dictum of Sir George Baden-Powell and others, 

 who, it is said, consider that "pelagic sealing is the most humane 

 and least wasteful method of killing seal." 



If the hunters are unskilled and many of the new hands shipped 

 every season must necessarily at first prove inexperienced and 

 bungling shots the waste and suffering inflicted is appalling. 

 Take such instances as the following, contained in Par. 614 of the 

 1892 Blue-book (Report of the Behring Sea Commission). In the 

 log-book of the Angel Dolly, when seized, was found the following 

 entry : " Issued to-day to my boats 300 rounds of ammunition ; all 

 expended, and got one sealskin." This, of course, is an extreme 

 case of bad marksmanship ; but that the percentage of wounded 

 animals escaping capture is far greater than many of the sealers 

 pretended is a fact too obvious to anybody conversant with the use 



* The latest returns of the catches made in the past season (1897) by pelagic 

 sealers demonstrates the result of indiscriminate killing. The total catch in the 

 North Pacific in 1897 was only 38,700, against 73,000 in 1896. .Of these 

 30,800 skins were taken by British (or Canadian) vessels, 4100 by American, 

 and 3800 by Japanese. The catch in the U.S. portion of the Behring Sea was 

 16,650, against 29,700 in 1896, and of these 15,000 skins were taken by British 

 craft. 



