228 SEAL LIFE ON THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 



that spaces formerly occupied by seal herds are now vacant and parts 

 of them covered with grass. This diminution was particularly notice 

 able in 1887 and 1888. the last two years" visit to the islands. (James 

 11. Douglas.) 



For many years prior to 1890 1 have observed the rookeries from my 

 ship and also from the islands. The first decrease in the number 

 appearing on the rookeries and in the surrounding sea that I particu 

 larly noticed was in the summer of 1884, and it has become more marked 

 from year to year since. For the last three or four years their disap 

 pearance has been very marked. In October, 1890, I made a trip from 

 Unalaska to St. .Michaels. When about 20 miles south of St. George 

 we commenced to watch for seals passing the Zapadnie rookery close 

 inshore along the west end of St. George Island to Otter Island and 

 Seal Island rock; thence to Northeast Point, about a mile and a hall 

 offshore. When we started, I requested the officers to keep a sharp 

 lookout and to report if they saw any seals in the water. I was on 

 deck most of the time myself also, and we only saw two seals in the 

 whole run; whereas ten years ago, when on a similar voyage, seals were 

 so plentiful that it was impossible to count them. From my long obser 

 vation I do not think there are as many seals by two-thirds now anuu 

 ally arriving on the islands or in those waters as there were ten years 

 ago, when I first commenced to notice that they were decreasing. B^ 

 this statement I mean to say that only one-third as many are now to be 

 seen as formerly. (M. C. Erskine.) 



Seals have decreased in numbers very rapidly in the last few years 

 and to anyone who saw the breeding rookeries as I did in 1880 the 

 change is most wonderful. (0. L. Fowler.) 



It was on the breeding rookeries and among the cows that I firsl 

 began to notice the decrease in seal life, and I do not think there were 

 more than one-fourth as many cows on the breeding rookeries in 189] 

 as were there in 1887. (C. L. Fowler.) 



I have been a resident of the seal islands for the past ten years; for 

 merly assistant agent of the Alaska Commercial Company, now agem 

 of the North American Company, and during that time was engagec 

 in the taking of seals. I have listened to the testimony of J. C. Red 

 path, as above, and fully concur in all that he has said concerning seal 

 life, with the exception that the number of seals on the islands this 

 season are, in 'my judgment, not more than one- fourth of what they 

 were in 1887. (6. L. Fowler.) 



In those days (from 1869 to 1882 or 1883) we used to get plenty o: 

 seals on the Zoltoi sands near the Eeef rookery, and now there are 

 none there. It was in 1884 that I first noticed a decrease in the seals 

 and it has been a steady and a very rapid decrease ever since 1880, sc 

 that at present there are not one-fourth as many seals on the island at 

 there was every year from 1869 to 1883. (John Fratis.) 



In 1889 I made careful observations of the rookeries on St. Pau 

 Island and marked out the areas covered by the breeding grounds; ir 

 1890 I examined these lines made by me the former year, and found a 

 very great shrinkage in the spaces covered by breeding seals. In 1~" 

 it was quite difficult for the lessees to obtain their full quota of 100,00( 

 skins ; so difficult was it in fact, that in order to turn off a sum' cienl 

 number of 4 and 5 years old males from the hauling grounds for breed 

 ing purposes in the future, the lessees were compelled to take about 

 50,000 skins of seals of 1 or 2 years of age. I at once reported thi 



