8 SEAL LIFE ON THE PRIIULOF ISLANDS. 



OPENING OF PART OF BERING SEA TO PELAGIC SEALING. 



By the provisions of the leceut treaty of arbitration, pelagic sealing 

 will hereafter be permitted in Bering Sea after August 1 of each year 

 outside of a radius of 00 miles from the Pribilof Islands. Notwithstand- 

 ing that the use of firearms will be prohibited, the opportunity afibrded 

 by this privilege is likely to i»roduce a very serious effect upon the seal 

 herd belonging to the several rookeries whenever the vessels find con- 

 tinuous good weather. Seals, when in the water, can readily be killed 

 by means of spears, and they are regularly taken in this manner by 

 most of the Indian seal hunters of the Northwest Coast. Manj^ sailing 

 vessels have been accustomed to carry Indian spear hunters with their 

 canoes in preference to the white hunters, who use guns and boats, and 

 we may expect to see full advantage taken of the former method in the 

 free waters of Bering Sea. The open season for seals coming, as it does, 

 at the close of the sea-otter season, will also make available the entire 

 force of Alaskan spear throwing hunters, who will be the more eager to 

 take advantage of the new privilege, in view of the recent restrictions 

 placed upon otter hunting and th«' present scarcity of otters. The 

 apparatus employed in the latter fishery is likewise largely adai)ted to 

 the pursuit of seals. After the month of August, however, the weather 

 soon becomes unsettled and stormy, thus somewhat limiting the period 

 when i)elagic sealing can safely be cairied on. 



Observations made upon the distribution of seals in Bering Sea 

 between July 28 and August 1.'), 18!>-!. by the steamer Corirrn, showed 

 (conclusively that the nursing seals travel distances of at least 200 miles 

 from the Pribilof Islands in search of food, and consequently that the 

 closed area about those islands, having a radius of only 00 miles, affords 

 them only a very partial protection. The effect of killing large num- 

 bers of these females, which must certainly take place, means also the 

 destiiiction of their i)ups on shore through starvation and the more 

 rapid thinning out of the herds upon the rookeries than has hitherto 

 occurred. The complete protection of the fur seal in Bering Sea, 

 together with such restrictions u])on its killing in the North Pacific 

 Ocean as have been i»rovided by the treaty of arbitration, would no 

 doubt permit a steady increase ui)on the rookeries where it breeds, 

 but its ]>ursuit in any manner within i)art of the area it occupies as a 

 feeding ground during the breeding season may be expected to have a 

 disastrous effect upon the breeding rookeries of the Pribilof Islands. 



I.ixt of the maps hUdwUkj the miHines of the tookerhs ov the Pribilof lalaiiils, 1S9J.^ 



ST. PAUL ISLAND. 



iS'oitln'.ist Point rookery Chart A 



Poliiviiia rookery Chart B 



Ketavie and Lukannon rookeries Chart C 



Reef and (iarhotcli rookeries Chart D 



Tolstoi and I^a^roon rookeries Chart P] 



Zapadnie and Englisii IJay rookeries Charts F and G 



ST. GEORGK ISLA.NO. 



Starry A rteel rookery Chart H 



North rookery Chart I 



East and Little East rookeries Chart J 



Zapadnie rookery Chart K 



' This set of maps not transmitted for jtnblieation, tlie accompanying set for 1895, 

 show inj; more reduced area of rookeries, licing deemed siitticient. 



