SEAL LIFE ON THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 21 



The opening of Bering Sea to pelagic sealing has proved the most 

 fatal of all the provisions of the Paris award. 



EFFECTIVE METHODS OF THE SEALING FLEET. 



The effectiveness with which pelagic sealing may be carried on in a 

 circumscribed hunting ground like Bering Sea may be more clearly set 

 forth by directing attention to the number of hunting boats engaged 

 during the past season. The sealing fleet consisted of 38 schooners, 

 carrying from 6 to I'O boats or canoes apiece — the average number being 

 about 12. The boats hunted in all directions, frequently going 10 miles 

 away from the vessels to which they belonged, the hunting areas of the 

 different schooners thus overlapping at times. I have often spoken 

 canoes 8 miles from their schooners. Pursuing seals in this systematic 

 way, 38 vessels carrying somewhat more than 450 boats, took 31,542 

 skins in six weeks, notwitlistanding the fact that many of them were 

 late in reaching Bering Sea from the Japan coast, and left early on 

 account of having their North Pacitic catches on board, for the purpose 

 of being early in market, on account of the impatience of Indian hunt- 

 ers already wearied with the long Japan coast cruise, lack of provisions, 

 or for other reasons. 



THE USE OF SPEARS. 



Of the Canadian fleet in Bering Sea, all but six schooners carried 

 Indian hunters from Vancouver and Queen Charlotte islands. These 

 natives have been taking seals off their own shores with the spear from 

 time immemorial, and' it was a fatal mistake on the part of the Paris 

 Tribunal to underestimate the efficiency of spears in such hands, a fact 

 doubtless well known to those having charge of the British side of the 

 case. 



The spear used during the past season is very similar to that figured 

 by Scammon twenty years ago in writing of pelagic sealing by these 

 natives.' '1 he spear pole is lU to 14 feet long, pronged, with two detach- 

 able barbed iron spear points, secured by a 30 yard line, the end of 

 which is tied to the boat. When a seal is struck the barbed points 

 slip off the pole, the latter being recovered after the seal has been pulled 

 alongside the canoe and clubbed. Seals fight vigorously at such times 

 and seldom fail to leave permanent marks of their sharp teeth on boats 

 and canoes, while large bulls are very dangerous to handle. 



Pelagic sealing is altogether impracticable for our own Aleut luitives, 

 their light skin-covered bidarkies not being constructed to withstand 

 such attacks as wounded seals make with their teeth. 



CHANGE OF FEEDING GROUNDS. 



The fur seal changes its feeding grounds in Bering Sea from year to 

 year. The changes appear to be quite marked, and are doubtless 

 dependent on the food sui)ply. The pelagic catch for the summer of 

 1894 was made chiefly to the southeast of the Pribilofs, the rest of the 

 catch being made south, southwest, west, and northwest of the islands. 

 A small proportion only were taken along the border of the plateau. 



Capt. J. W. Todd, of the sealer Rose Sparls. states that in 1889 he 

 found seals plentiful to the nortlieast of the Pribilofs, and moderate 

 numbers were to the northwest and southeast. In 1887, when sealing 

 with the schooner LiUy L., he found the herd chiefly to the southeast, 

 taking 197 seals in two days. 



' Marine Mam., Scammon, p. 159. 



