PINNIPEDIA 24 1 



(Phoca groenlandica) , from Labrador and northward. 10 In 1885, 19 

 British vessels in the Newfoundland fishery took 211,587 seals, and in 

 1886, 18 vessels took 195,396, for the skins and oil. 11 



The hair seals are hunted for their oil, and the skins are made into 

 leather. Lucas in 1889 estimated that 875,000 of them were being killed 

 annually. 12 Half a century ago, in some seasons 40,000 seals were killed 

 on the Island of Peshnoi, near the mouths of the Ural, 1300 having 

 been killed in one night in 1846. It was "no infrequent occurrence to 

 see 15,000 dead seals cover the battlefield of a single night." One fac- 

 tory manufactured 3,600,000 pounds of seal oil annually. 13 



There is considerable difference of opinion as to just how destruc- 

 tive to fish the seals are. Quite likely the different species differ some- 

 what in habit, and the food of a given species likely varies from time 

 to time and from place to place. Usually animals of mixed diet take 

 the food that is most readily obtained wherever they may be. During 

 the salmon runs on the northwestern coast of North America the fish 

 furnish an abundant supply of food, and may attract numbers of seals, 

 which normally would not take many fish. 



Bartlett says that the Newfoundland seals feed principally upon 

 fishes, but eat also considerable quantities of mollusks and starfishes. 14 

 Walker says that at Stikine River, Alaska, 27.39 P 61 " cen t of the red- 

 meated king salmon and 8.63 per cent of the white-meated salmon 

 in the fishermen's nets are mutilated and damaged by hair seals, and 

 an unknown percentage removed entirely from the nets without leav- 

 ing any remains, besides the damage to the nets. 15 Smith says that 13 

 per cent of the salmon in nets are destroyed by seals. 16 On the other 

 hand, Merriam examined many stomachs of fur seals and found the 

 contents to be chiefly squids, "while in only a few instances were any 

 traces of fish discovered." 17 Of thirty-five stomachs of the harbor seal 

 (Phoca richardii), only two contained remains of salmon; other food 

 items were herring, tomcod, shiner, sculpin, shrimp, crab, squid, octo- 



10 Hornaday, The American natural history, i, 123-136, 1914. 



11 Southwell, Bull. U. S. Fish Comm., vi, 11-16, 1887. 



12 Lucas, Ann. Kept. U. S. Natl Museum for 1889, p. 611. 



13 Schultz, Fishing and sealing in the Caspian Sea, Kept. U. S. Fish Comm. for 

 1874-75, PP. 58-96. 



14 Bartlett, Newfoundland seals, Journ. Mammalogy, vin, 207-212, 1927. 



15 Walker, Destructiveness of hair seals in the salmon fisheries, Rept. U. S. Bu- 

 reau Fisheries for 1915, pp. 47-51. 



18 Smith, Bull U. S. Fish Comm., xvn, 120, 1898. 



" Merriam, Food of sea-lions, Science, xin, 777-779, 1901 ; Rept. U. S. Bureau 

 Fisheries for 1902, pp. 113-114. 



