146 SEAL LIFE ON THE PRIl-ILoT ISLANDS. 



and in 1S1U the rookeries were covered with dead pups. In my sixty- 

 seven years" residence on the islands ! never before saw anything like 

 it. None of our people have ever known of any sickness among the 

 pups or seals, and have never M'en any dead pups on the rookeries, 

 except a lew killed by the old bulls when lighting, or by drowning 

 when the surf washed t hem off. 1 f they had not killed i he seals in the 

 sea there would be as many on the rookeries as there was ten years ago. 

 There was not one-fourth as many >eals in 1>!H as there was in 1SSO. 



Th" fur seal goes away from the island in the iall or winter and he 

 re tin us in A I ay or June ; and 1 believe he will haul up ii; ; he same place 

 each year, for I particularly noticed some that 1 could tell that hauled 

 ii} in the same place for a number oi' years: and v. hen we make drives, 

 those we do nor kill, but let go ; nto the water, are all back when- we 

 took them from in a few hours. The pups me born between the middle 

 of June and the middle of .Inly, and can nut swim until they are <i or 

 7 weeks old: and if burn in rhe water they would die. 1 have seen the 

 surf wash some of the young pups into the sea. and they drowned in a 

 very short time. In four or five days after it is born the m< ther seal 

 leaves her pup and goe> away in the water to feed, and when the pup 

 is - or ,'i weeks old the mother often stays a\\ay for live or six days at a 

 time. The mot her seals know their own pups by smelling them, and no 

 seal will allow any but her own pap to suck her. When the pups grow 

 to be o' or 8 weeks old they form in pods" and work down to the 

 shore, and they Try the water at the cd.Lie until they learn to swim. 

 They will remain on the island until November, and. if not too cold, 

 will stay till December. J liaveseen them Mvimming around the island 

 late in January. All the seals when they leave the islands go olf south, 

 but I think they would stay around here ail winter if the weather was 

 not so cold. 



\Yhen they come back to the islands they come from the south, and 

 1 think they come from the North l j acilic Ocean over the same track 

 that they went. The females go upon the rookeries as soon as they arrive 

 here, bin the yearlings, males and females, herd together. I think they 

 stay in the water most of the time the first year, but after that they 

 come regularly to the hauling grounds and rookeries, but do not come 

 as early in the season as they do after they are - years old. Male seals 

 from ~ to (> years old do not go on the breeding rookeries, but haul out 

 by themselves. The female seal gives birth to but one pup every year, 

 and >he has her first pup when she is .'I years old. The male seal estab- 

 lishes himself on the breeding rookery in May or June, when he is 7 or 8 

 years old. and he tights for his cows and does not leave the place he has 

 selected until August or September. Our people like the meat of the 

 seal, and \\ e eat no other meal so long as we can get it. 



The pup seals are our chicken meat, and we used to be allowed to kill 

 ,'J.onn or 4.MOO male pups every year in November: but the ( Jovernment 

 agent forbade us to kill any in IS'.M, and said we should not be allowed 

 to kill any more, and he gave us other meat in place of pup meat, but 

 we do not like any other meat as \\ ell as the pup- seal meat. We under- 

 stand the danger there is in the seals being all killed off, and that we 

 will ha ve no wa v of earning our living. There is not one of us but what 

 believes if they had not killed them off by shooting them in the water 

 there would be as many seals on the island now as there was in 1880, 

 and we could go on forever taking 100.000 seals on the two islands, 

 lint if they get less as fast as they have in the last live or six years, 

 there, will be none left in a little while. 



KEKK ICK AKTOMANOFF. 



