342 SEAL LIFE ON THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 



the closure of Bering Sea. Now, however, it seems doubtful whether 

 it will not be necessary to extend protection over the waters of the 

 North Pacific. 



Of course it will be asked if this can be legally effected; I see no 

 obstacle in the way of doing it. We would have no difficulty whatever 

 in proving to the satisfaction of any fair-minded nation that all the 

 seals in the eastern part of the North Pacific and Bering Sea are born 

 and reared on the Pribilof Islands, and those in the western part of 

 the same waters have their habitat on the Commander Islands; nor do 

 they resort for breeding to any other than these two places in the North- 

 ern Hemisphere, excepting only the very small number found on Rob- 

 ben Island in the Okhotsk Sea. They can be positively identified as 

 our property. The seals found in these respective places differ so much 

 that expert skin assorters can distinguish between them in handling 

 the skins; and, in any event, this matter concerns only the United 

 States and Eussia. When the seals on which the British are now poach- 

 ing are found in the Pacific they are simply astray; but are, neverthe- 

 less, either our property or that of Eussia, and should be respected and 

 protected as such. 



After twenty one years of careful study of the subject, I am entirely 

 satisfied that the usual migratory course of the seals leads them to the 

 southward from the Pribilof Islands, mostly through the passes into 

 the Pacific, to the eastward of and including the pass of longitude 172 

 west; thence they turn to the eastward along the Aleutian Archipelago, 

 through the Shumagin group, and past Kodiak, to appear in February 

 and March down about Vancouver Island and in the straits and chan- 

 nels to the northward and eastward of Vancouver, where large numbers 

 are annually killed in the early spring months. The more notable proofs 

 of this are: 



(1) That many young seals are killed in November, December, and 

 January by the Alaskans among the Aleutian Islands, and more could 

 and would be taken if the natives were not restrained by our agents 

 from hunting them. 



(2) Fur seals are fish eaters and naturally keep upon such banks and 

 shoals, within easy soundings, as furnish them an abundant food supply. 



(3) They are rarely seen in the waters of the North Pacific at any 

 considerable distance from soundings, but are plentiful along the Alas- 

 kan coast during all the winter months. 



(4) A large proportion of the several thousand seals killed annually 

 about the British Columbia coast in March and April are pregnant 

 females in just that stage of gestation that would be expected in ani- 

 mals whose period of eleven months terminates in June. 



(5) Almost simultaneously with their disappearance from the British 

 Columbia coast in April they are again found in increasing numbers in 

 the Aleutian Archipelago and, a little later, in Bering Sea. 



(6) The most careful search for other breeding grounds than those at 

 the Pribilof Islands has been fruitless. It can be positively asserted 

 that none exist. 



The best season for marauding in Bering Sea is the latter part of 

 July and August, for the female seals, having left their young on the 

 islands, are then off on the feeding grounds to the southward, and the 

 destruction of the mother at this time is followed by the loss of the pup, 

 which dies for want of nourishment. This was vividly illustrated in 

 the heavy storms of last fall, when several thousand pups, too weak and 

 feeble to withstand their violence, were thrown upon the beaches and 

 killed. In the earlier years of the lease no such destruction of the young 

 was observed during the autumn storms as we have lately witnessed. 



