SEAL LIFE ON THE PKIBILOF ISLANDS. 79 



For if the mother seals are destroyed their young <';n not but perish ; no other dam 

 will suckle them; nor ran they subsist until at leant 3 or 4 months old without 

 the mother's milk. The loss of this vast number of pups, amounting to many thou- 

 sands, we could attribute to no other cause than the death of the mother at the hands 

 of pelftgic seal hunters. (II. II. Mclntyre.) 



(,>. Uo\v do you account for this:* A. I think the cows were killed by the poach- 

 ers while away from the rookeries, and as mother seals nurse none but their own 

 young, consequently the pups whose mothers were killed die from starvation. 

 (Antone Melovedoff, native chief.) 



The seals are never visited by physical disorders of any kind, so far as I could 

 ascertain, and I have never seen on their bodies any blemishes, humors, or eruption* 

 which might be attributed to disease. (John M. Morton.) 



These latter pups 1 examined, and they seemed to be very much emaciated. In 

 my opinion, they died of starvation, caused by the mothers having been shot while 

 absent from the islands feeding. Another cause of their starving is because a cow 

 refuses to give suck to any pup but her own, and she recognizes her offspring by 

 its cry, distinguishing its voice from that of hundreds of others which are con- 

 stantly bleating. (.). II. Moulton.) 



The epidemic theory was urged very strongly in 1891, when the rookeries were 

 found covered with dead puyjs, but a careful and technical examination was made 

 of several of the dead bodies without discovering a trace of organic disease, while 

 starvation was so apparent that those who examined them decided that it was the 

 true cause of their death. Had sickness or disease attacked the seal herd, it is only 

 reasonable to suppose a few grown seals would be found dead where so many young^ 

 ones had died so suddenly, but the most diligent search has failed to find a grown 

 seal dead upon the islands from unknown causes. From the discovery of the islands 

 until the present time the flesh of the fur seal has been the daily meat ration of the 

 natives and of the white people, and yet it is a fact that a tainted or diseased carcasa 

 has never been known. (L. A. Noyes, M. D., resident physician, 1880-1894.) 



Some of these losses were due to their perhaps too early attempts to swim. When 

 the pup is a few months old the mother seal conducts it to the water and teaches it 

 to swim near the shore. If a heavy sea is encountered the weak little pup is liable 

 to be thrown by the surf against the rocks and killed, but under natural conditions, 

 and with the protection to the rookeries formerly enforced at the islands, the losses 

 from this cause and all others combined (save alone the authorized killing) amounted 

 to an infinitesimal percentage of the whole numbers in the herds. (H. G. Otis, 

 Treasury agent, 1879-1881.) 



Another theory, equally untrue, was that an epidemic had seized the herd; but 

 investigations of the closest kind have never revealed the death on the islands of a 

 full-grown seal from unknown causes. Let it be remembered that the flesh of the 

 seal is the staple diet of the natives, and that it is eaten daily by most of the white 

 employees as well; and yet it is true that a sign of taint or disease has never been 

 found on a seal carcass in the memory of man. It was not until so many thousands 

 of dead pups were found upon the rookeries that the problem was solved. The truth, 

 is, that when the cows go out to the feeding grounds to feed, they are shot and killed 

 by the pelagic hunter, and the pups, deprived of sustenance, die upon the rookeries. 

 Excepting a few pups killed by the surf occasionally, it has been demonstrated that 

 all the pups found dead are poor and starved, and when examined their stomachs are 

 found to be without a sign of food of any sort. The resident physician, Dr. Akerly, 

 examined many of them, and found in every instance that starvation was the cause 

 of death. (J. C. Redpath.) 



A double waste occurs when the mother seal is killed, as the pup will surely starve 

 to death. A mother seal will give sustenance to no pup but her own. I saw sad 

 evidences of this waste on St. Paul Island last season, where large numbers of pups 

 were lying about the rookeries, where they had died of starvation. (Commander 

 Z.L. Tanner, U. S. X.) 



I never heard of any disease among the seal herd, nor of an epidemic of any sort or 

 at any time in the history of the islands. (Daniel Webster, lessees' agent, 1868-1894. ) 



If the mother of a young seal is killed, the pup is very likely to die. It will be so- 

 weak that the storm will dash it ashore and kill it, or it may die of starvation. I 

 have seen pups hardly larger than a rat from lack of nourishment. A starved or 

 neglected orphan pup is nearly sure to die. At one storm the natives found over 300 

 pups washed ashore in a little cove, and the water around was full of dead pups. It 

 is certain that nearly all the dead pups were orphans. The female seal when suckling 

 her young has to go out into the ocean in search of food, and it is those animals, or 

 females on the way to the breeding grounds to give birth to the young, that we kill 

 in the Bering Sea. (T. T. Williams, quoting Captain Olsen.) 



