RELATING TO FUR-SEALS AND SEALSKIN INDUSTRY. 365 



This year I have counted over 3,500 skins seized on poaching ves- 

 sels and have found 96 per cent to be skins of females. Asiatic ela i0 

 These were skins taken from Commander Island seals, catch^re per c^ntfe" 



As to skins taken near Pribilof Island, I counted the males - 

 skins seized in the Rosa Olsen and found two-thirds (§) of them were 

 skins of females. These were taken, as the log book of the Rosa Olsen 

 shows, over 80 miles from shore. 



I consider it a false argument to say that the killing of a proper por- 

 tion oi the excess of male life is bad, merely because it 

 is an interference with the order of nature. If not in- ma^afvanl^lou * 

 terfered with nature will produce an overpopulation of 

 the rookeries, which would, of course, be a bad thing. By the present 

 mode of killing a certain number of young males population is regu- 

 lated. No facts can be brought forward to show that this method is 

 not the right one. Past experience shows that it is right. 



The method is not proved to be bad by showing that during some 

 years too many males may have been killed, and that 

 the rookeries have thereby suffered. When such mis- ih ^\LT} y possi ' 

 takes have been made they can be corrected by reduc- 

 ing the number of males to be killed for a few years; for the most 

 absolute control can be exercised over the herd while it is on land. 

 I claim that the method now pursued, when executed 

 under proper regulations, is in theory and practice pi^d h ptrfect w em " 

 the only one by which sealing can be carried on com- 

 mercially without injuring the vitality of the herd and its ability to 

 maintain its numbers at the proper limit. It does not cause the seals 

 to change their habits in any way, and I do not believe 

 that even an excessive killing of young males on the f e led thereby. 110 * af 

 islands would have the effect of altering the habits of 

 the female seals with regard to landing, and cause them to remain 

 about the islands instead of coming on shore. 



Cows, except, perhaps, in rare cases of accident or for scientific pur- 

 poses, are never allowed to be killed on the islands, 

 and the reason for this is that all cows are needed for la J^ W8 not kllled on 

 breeding purposes. To kill, therefore, any cow except 

 a barren one (and there are few barren ones except amongst the very 

 old cows) inflicts a much greater injury on the herd than the loss of a 

 single life. It is not true that because it is proper to kill a certain 

 number of males it is also proper to kill a certain number of females. 

 But assuming that it might at some time become desirable to kill some 

 females, it would still be wholly improper to kill them without regard 

 to size or condition, as is the case when they are killed in the water. 



There is at the present time upon the Commander Islands an abun- 

 dance of male life for breeding purposes, and there is no virile males abun 

 fear that any female will not be served from lack of dant. 

 virile males. On the other hand it is undoubtedly true Females diminished 

 that there were in 1892 relatively fewer females than by pelagic killing and 

 in former years, and I attribute this to two causes, rai 8 ' 

 first, to killing of seals in the water, and, second, raids upon the islands. 

 The first of these causes is by far the more important. 



The raids have, owing to the great amount of foggy weather, taken 

 place to a certain extent notwithstanding the greatest precautions to 

 guard against them. The raiders kill males, females, and pups with- 

 out discrimination. But however injuriously the raids have affected 

 the rookeries, still they are of much less imx^ortance than the killing of 



