SEAL LIFE ON THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 365 



demonstrated from the statistics oil file in the Department which show 

 a, pelagic catch of Alaskan seals to have been as follows: 



1891 .. 45,491 



IS!IL> 46,642 



1893 28,613 



1S!M 55,668 



1895 (estimated) 40,000 



Total for Jive years 216, 864 



to which I add o'O percent for the loss of pups that died on the rookeries 

 because of the killing of their dams at sea during the nursing season. 



I base the proportion of pups on what I witnessed this year in Bering 

 Sea, where the logs kept by the sealers showed a killing of (JO per cent 

 females for the season : 21(>,8(>4 plus <>0 per cent equals 34(i,98'J seals 

 taken or destroyed in live years by pelagic sealers who pay nothing 

 whatever for the care of the animals. 



I have estimated 40,000 as the catch for 1895. 1 left Bering Sea Sep- 

 tember 18. when 31,iM(> seals had beeu taken by pelagic sealers, of which 

 number IS.SCSor CO per cent were females as per the logs of the several 

 vessels. These females were nursing mothers in milk, whose young 

 were left upon the rookeries while they went out to sea for food and 

 rest, instead of which they met the pelagic sealer who, according to law, 

 killed them and carried off their skins and left their helpless young to 

 bleat themselves to death upon the rookeries. 



In a former report I pointed out the absurdity of the regulations that 

 would protect the female seals from the pelagic sealer during the 

 months of May, June, and July, most of which time they are on the 

 islands and beyond his reach, and that would give him a clear and 

 free field in August, as soon as the mother seal takes to the water 

 in search of much needed food and rest and when, above all other times, 

 she needs protection. 



The taking of 31,000 seals in the month of August, 1895, proves the 

 correctness of my position, and renders it needless to dwell upon the 

 absurdity of the position the nation has been placed in by the present 

 sealing regulations. 



I therefore most respectfully call the attention of the Department to 

 the five suggestions made by me in my report of last year, the adop- 

 tion of which I believe will forever settle the seal question. 



SALMON. 



Owing to a lack of traveling facilities to the several canneries during 

 the fishing season, and to the fact that the whole revenue fleet of the 

 Pacific Ooast had to do duty in Bering Sea, I found it impossible to 

 visit many of the canneries beyond Karluk, where I found that one of 

 the rival establishments had sold out to the Alaska Packers' Associa- 

 tion and quit the business, thus leaving only two principal competitors 

 on the river the Alaska Improvement Company and the Alaska Pack- 

 ers' Association. 



Much crimination and recrimination were indulged in on both sides 

 as each endeavored to show it was the other one who violated the law, 

 and a string of complaints was presented by the Indians similar to 

 those presented by the same party in 1894, and of which I treated in 

 my report for that year. 



I found the fishermen with their nets in the narrowest part of the 

 Karluk River, and so systematically do they work the nets that I could 



