ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 219 



On this subject I append a statement made by Captain Olsen, of the 

 sealing bark Bessie Ruter, at Victoria. 



Captain Olsen, of the American schooner Bessie Ruter, of Astoria, 

 reached Victoria September 27, 1889. In the office of the American 

 consul. Col. E. Stevens, he said: " I took 550 skins in Bering Sea. Of 

 these 27 were pups, 520 females, and 3 male seals, which I killed off the 

 island of Kadiak. Most of the female seals were with young. I had 

 a green crew and green hunters. They used shotguns and sometimes 

 the rifle. They got about one seal for every three they aimed at. Some 

 they missed altogether, and some of the wounded ones got away. There 

 is great risk of losing a traveling seal. The sleeping seals blow up an 

 air bladder that keeps them from sinking, but the seals when awake sink 

 easily. Hooks are used to grapple them, but if the boat is some distance 

 from the seal when it is killed it does not often get it. For that reason 

 rifle shooting at long range hardly pays. I will get about $7.75 for some 

 of my skins and $8 for others. My voyage will pay, because I ran the 

 boat on the cheap. I only had two men to the boat, and only paid my 

 hunters $1 per skin instead of $2, which is paid to first-class hunters. 

 Some very skillful hunters do not lose many skins. They will never 

 fire unless a seal is at close range, and they generally kill. Of course 

 they lose some from sinking. All the hunters brag about how few they 

 lose, because they want the reputation of being good hunters. The 

 better reputation they have the better chance they get. 



If Bering Sea were open many new men would come into the business 

 and the loss would be greater. Only a few men make successful hunt- 

 ers. It is like being a clever rifle shot. If the best hunters lose ten 

 or fifteen in a hundred, the other kind lose ten times as many, if not 

 more. Green hands will throw away a lot of ammunition, shooting at 

 everything they see, whether it is in range or not. You can not stop 

 them. They will wound more than they kill. (T. T. Williams.) 



DESTRUCTION OF NURSING FEMALES. 



We entered Bering Sea through the Muckawa Pass the 1st of Jnly, 

 and commenced hunting seals wherever we could find them, among 

 which were a great many cows giving milk, which we killed from 30 to 

 150 miles from the islands. (Charles Adair.) 



I have no exact information as to the proportion of male and female 

 seals killed by pelagic hunters, but it is my firm conviction, from my 

 knowledge of the habits of the males in not leaving the islands during 

 the breeding season, and the well-known fact that mother seals go great 

 distances in search of food while nursing their young, that the females 

 are slaughtered in great numbers during their jouneys to and from the 

 islands by pelagic hunters. (George E. Adams.) 



And when in Bering Sea we take seals from 10 to 120 miles from the 

 seal islands. (William Bendt) 



And the larger proportion of those killed in Bering Sea are also cows. 

 Have killed cow seals, with milk in them, 65 miles from the Pribilof 

 Islands. * * * A few male seals are taken, ages ranging from 1 to 

 5 years. Once in a while we catch an old bull in the Pacific Ocean. 

 (Martin Benson.) 



We came out of Bering Sea the latter part of August and had caught 

 about 1,700 seals between the Pribilof Islands and Unalaska. We 

 caught them from 10 to 100 or more miles off St. George Island. (Niels 

 Bonde.) 



