THE SEA-OTTER FISHERY. 485 



When Shellikov's party first visited Cook's Inlet they secured 3,000; during the second year 

 2,000; in the third season only 800, and in the succeeding year they obtained GOO, and finally, in 

 1812, less than 100, and since then not one-tenth of that number, although I ain told, at the date 

 of this writing, that during the past two years more than 500 sea-otters annually have been taken 

 on the coasts of Cook's Inlet, much to the surprise of the oldest inhabitant and the great gratifica- 

 tion of the energetic hunters. 



During the first visit made by the Russians to the Gulf of Yakootat, in 1794, 2,000 sea-otters 

 were taken. But they diminished so rapidly that in 1799 the most persistent scouring of the 

 hunters secured less than 300. 



In 1798 a large party of Russians and Aleuts captured in Sitka Sound and that neighborhood 

 1,200 skins, besides those for which they traded with the Woloshes, or natives, who had fully as 

 many more. In the spring of 1800 a few American and English vessels came into Sitka Sound, 

 anchored off the small Russian settlement there and traded with the Indians for over 2,000 skins, 

 getting this native barter away from the Russians by giving fire-arms, powder, ball, and even 

 ii'quor, which the Russians did not dare to do, leaving thein, as they were, in fixed settlements 

 throughout the country of the aborigines. 



In one of the early years of the Russian American Company, about 1804 I believe, Baranov 

 went to the Okhotsk from Alaska with 15,000 sea-otter skins in the hold of a single ship, which he 

 himself convoyed ; and they were worth then just as much as they are now, namely, fully $1,500,000. 



EAELY DECREASE IN NUMBERS. The result of this warfare upon the sea-otters, faintly 

 sketched above, with ten hunters then where there is one to-day, was not long delayed. Every- 

 where throughout the whole coast line frequented by them the rapid disappearance of the otter 

 set in, and it is not difficult to find places where 1,000 had been as easily obtained as 25 or 30 could 

 now be secured. 



A Russian chronicler* says, and I translate him literally: "The numbers of several kinds 

 of animals are growing very much less in the present as compared with past times ; for instance 

 the company here (Oonalashka) regularly killed more than 1,000 sea-otters annually; now (1835) 

 from 70 to 150 are taken; and there was a time, in 1826, when the returns from the whole Oonalashka 

 district (the Aleutian Isles) where only 15 skins." * * * Sea-otters are distinguished above 

 everything, on account of their great value and small numbers. There was a time when they 

 were killed by thousands ; now, only by hundreds. There are plenty of places where formerly 

 there were great numbers of sea-otters, but now not one is to be seen or found. The reason for 

 this is most evident; every year, hunted without rest, they have fled to places unknown and with- 

 out danger." 



EFFECT OF THE DECREASE. It is also a fact, coincident with this diminution of the sea-otter 

 life, that the population of the Aleutian Islands fell off almost in the same proportion. The Rus- 

 sians regarded the lives of these people with the same respect and no more than they did those 

 of dogs, and treated them accordingly. They took on one occasion, under Baranov and his sub- 

 jects, hunting parties of from 500 to 1,000 picked Aleuts 1,100 or 1,200 miles away from and to the 

 eastward of their homes, conveying them in skin "baidars"and "bidarkies," traversing one of 

 the wildest and roughest of coasts, and using them not only for the severe drudgery of sea otter 

 hunting, but also to kill the Koloshians and other savages, all the way np and down the coast. 

 This combination of hunting, exposure, and war-like destruction soon destroyed them, and very 

 few of these unhappy men ever got back alive to the spots of their birth, to their wives and their 

 children. 



* BISHOP VEXIAXMIXOV : Zaiiioskio ot Oonlaashkeuskalio OtdayU; St. Petersburg, 1842. 



