222 SEAL LIFE ON THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 



ime cutters from the poaching vessels, and there were very few male 

 skins among them; also have seen among them a great number of 

 unborn pups. Twice upon the rookeries I have seen cows killed and 

 left there by the poachers. (Anton Melovedoff.j 



I know of no other explanation than this: The cows are shot and 

 killed when they go into the sea to feed and the pups die on the rook- 

 eries. This, I think, is the true solution of the vexed question, "What 

 has become of the seals?" (Anton Melovedoff.) 



Since 1883, however, there is said to have occurred a very material 

 diminution of the seal life on the Pribilof Islands, due, as it is claimed, 

 to a large and indiscriminate slaughter of these animals in the waters 

 of Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The cause assigned for this loss 

 is undoubtedly the true one. If no other proof were forthcoming in 

 relation to it, the large display of dead pups on the rookeries would in 

 itself furnish all the evidence required. Such diminution could not, 

 in my opinion, be the result of the yearly slaughter of skins. It is 

 shown that an appreciable expansion of the rookeries took place after 

 twelve or fourteen years of such slaughter, and I think this fact 

 conclusively demonstrates that the number of seals which the law per- 

 mitted to be killed each year was not greater than the known condi- 

 tions of the seal's life would safely warrant. (J. M. Morton.) 



From the experience gained, and observations made, during three 

 killing seasons; from the information gleaned from men who have 

 devoted their lives to the practical side of the seal question, and from 

 the books and reports in the Government offices on the islands, I am 

 able to say that, in my opinion, there is only one great cause of the de- 

 crease of the fur seal, and that is the killing of the females by pelagic 

 hunting. (Joseph Murray.) 



I believe this decrease is owing to the large number of vessels engaged 

 in hunting the fur seal at sea, and the indiscriminate methods employed 

 by these sealing vessels in taking skins. (Arthur Newman.) 



The practice of pelagic seal hunting was followed by the Northwest 

 Coast Indians from their earliest history, but amounted to so little as 

 to be inappreciable on the islands. Even after white hunters engaged 

 in it in a limited way our losses from this source were attributed to the 

 marine enemies of the seals, and was so far overcome by the good man- 

 agement of the islands as to permit the growth of the herd to continue 

 so long as it was limited to a few vessels and confined to the vicinity of 

 the Oregon, Washington, and British Columbian coasts. But even 

 before any considerable slaughter had taken place in the waters of 

 Bering Sea. as early as 1882, it was noticed that the rookeries had 

 stopped expanding, though they were treated in every way as they 

 always had been. An examination of the London Catalogue of seal-skin 

 sales shows that the " Victoria catch " already aggregated a very con- 

 siderable number of skins, and now brings home the conviction that 

 pelagic sealing, when confined almost wholly to the Pacific, is still a 

 very dangerous enemy of seal life on the islands. After 1886 the force 

 of pelagic hunters was greatly augmented, and became more and more 

 aggressive, until they appeared in alarming numbers in Bering Sea in 

 1884 and 1885. In 1887 we were forced to commence taking smaller 

 skins in order to obtain our quota and preserve enough breeding bulls. 

 In 1888 they were still smaller, while in 1889 more than half of them 

 were such as we would not have killed in former years ; and we called the 

 attention of the Treasury Department to the evident diminution of seal 



