FUR SEALS OR SEA BEARS. 231 



not an idle contention is proved by the fact that in 1896 

 over 16,000 young Seals were found dead from starva- 

 tion on the Pribilov Islands because they had been de- 

 prived of their natural sustenance; while careful esti- 

 mates, made in 1897, showed that since the beginning of 

 pelagic sealing 300,000 young Seals had died as the direct 

 result of the slaughter of 400,000 adult female Seals at 

 sea. 



"Originally descended from a land animal, the Fur 

 Seal has become adapted to life in the open sea, and seeks 

 the land only for breeding purposes. When the young 

 are able to care for themselves, and on the approach of 

 winter, the animals leave their island home and the long 

 migration down the Pacific Ocean to the latitude of Santa 

 Barbara in California begins. The return journey, which 

 brings them back to the island, is not completed until June 

 of the following year. The food they consume on the islands 

 in the summer is procured at a distance of from one 

 hundred to two hundred miles from the rookeries." 



The Indians have always hunted the stragglers from 

 the migratory herd who came within reach of the shore, 

 but it was not until the spring of 1879, that sailing vessels 

 were used, to take the hunters out to meet the main body 

 of the herd, and follow its course northward. In time the 

 hunting extended to the summer feeding grounds in the 

 Bering Sea, where the female Seal was the chief victim 

 because of the greater regularity of its feeding, leaving 

 many unprotected young to die of starvation. 



Beginning with the catch of eight thousand in 1879, 

 the number of Seals taken annually by Pelagic sealers 

 steadily increased on account of the extension of the 

 fleet; and in 1894, sixty-one thousand skins were taken. 

 Since 1894, the pelagic catch has declined, with the de- 

 clining herd ; but the actual toll, in the period from 1879 

 to 1911, exceeded one million without taking into account 

 the seals killed but not recovered. As the adult males do 

 not as a rule accompany the female and their young on 

 the long journey to the south, eighty-five per cent, of the 

 animals destroyed by pelagic sealers were females. 



The United States attempted to stop pelagic sealing 

 years ago, and in 1886 seized a number of British vessels 

 found pursuing the industry in waters declared closed 



