1! SKAL LIFI-: ON THK rUIUILoF ISLANDS. 



steady annual decrease is to be t'oinid outside the islands, and as there 

 is only one known cause to which the decrease can be attributed, the 

 almost unanimous verdict of civilization is that the indiscriminate 

 slaughter of si als by the pelagic sealer is the principal cause of the 

 decrease MI the herds. 



From my o\\ n knowledge of the situation, gained by an experience 

 of t \\ o seasons on tin- islands, 1 have no doubt whatever as to the cause 

 of the decrease, for one has only to look at the oilicial returns of the, 

 pelagic catch for 1S!M to see at a glance that however numerous the 

 seals may have been in 1SS1 they could not stand the drain made upon 

 them for the past ten years without showing it. 



From the best information obtainable it appears that the pelagic 

 sealers secured 1 12.000 seal skins in 1S1M. The oilicial figures from 

 the American and Uritisli customs'' show that 122,000 skins were landed 

 on the Pacific Slope, and there is good ground for the belief that the 

 remainder were landed in Japan or Russian ports and shipped to 

 London via the Sue/. ( 'anal. 



It is admitted on all sides that 70 per cent of the catch were females, 

 mostly mother seals in young or in milk, whose death in either case 

 meant the deatli of two seals, for it is well known that when a mother 

 in milk is killed at sea her pup dies on the rookery for want of sus- 

 tenance. 



I do not make the statement of the death <'f the pups from starvation 

 recklessly: there is positive proof of it. 



In the latter part of August. 1S1M. when the first dead pups of the 

 season appeared on the breeding grounds, 1 made daily visits to the 

 rookeries and found hundreds ot dead pups that had died of starvation. 



I 1 undreds yet alive were so wasted, weak, and feeble they could with 

 difficult y drag themselves over t lie rocks, and would not attempt to get 

 out of the way when approached. 



Between September 1.1 and I'd the Treasury agent on Si. George 

 counted the dead pups on all the accessible portions of the rookeries 

 upon which lie could climb without distuibing the seals, and. estimat- 

 ing the number n i seen to be in proportion to those found, tliere were 

 -1.1 K dead imps on St.Cieorge Island. 



The same method was followed on St. Paul, and the rookeries visited 

 and dead pups actually counted on them are shown in the following 

 table : 



Tolstoi was not visited, and. a> only the accessible portion-, of the 

 rookeries could be reached, I consider I am below rather than above 

 the mark when I put the number of dead pups on both the islands, in 



!>>! 1. ;it L'0,000. 



One sigh l of the rookeries when the pu ps are dying by the h u mired 

 is enough to convince anyone <f the truth of the claim made by the 

 Treasury agent s. that it is because of starvation, owing to the deatli of 

 their mothers at sea. that so many pups die in August and September. 

 There is no difficult v \\ hat ever 'n tcllinu the difference bet ween starv- 



