26 TESTIMONY 



eries last year died of starvation on account of their mothers being 

 shot and killed while feeding- at the fishing- banks in 



Pups dying of star- ,, o o 



vatiou. the sea. 



I was present last year and saw some of the dead pups examined. 

 Their stomachs were empty, and they presented all the appearances of 

 staivation. I aLso noticed on the rookeries a great many emaciated 

 pups, which, on a later visit, would be dead. It has always been the 

 pra(;tice prior to 1891 for the natives to kill three to four thousand pui)S 

 in November for food, and we always find their stomachs filled with 

 milk. I have also observed that the male seals killed soon after they 

 come to the islands are fat and their stomachs filled 

 ^jj^acheiors do not ^^,j^|j £^,q^|^ ^^,]jjj^ ^j^q^.^ \^^]l^.^l j^ the latter part of tha 



season are poor and lean and without food in their 

 stomachs. It was on the breeding rookeries and among the cows that 



1 first began to notice the decrease in seal life, and I 

 fouitiis' 10^0*111 wars. ^^^ ^^^^ thiulv there was more than one-fourth as many 



cows on the breeding rookeries in 1891 that there was 



in 1887. And I know of no other cause for the decrease than that of the 



Pelagic sealing the killing of the COWS at sca by the pelagic hunters, which 



cai^se. X believe must be prohibited if the Alaskan fur-seal is 



to be saved from total destruction. 



C. L. FOWLEU. 



Subscribed and sworn to before me, an officer empowered to admin- 

 ister oaths under section 1976, Eevised Statutes of the United States, 

 this 8th day of June, 1892, at St. Paul Island, Alaska. 



Wm. H. Williams, 

 Treasury Agent in charge of Seal Islands. 



Deposition of J. M. ITays, master mariner in employ of lessees of Prihilof 



Islands. 



hookeries and pelagic sealing. 



State of Califohnia, 



City and County of San Francisco^ ss: 

 Capt. J. M. Hays, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I reside in 

 San Francisco, and am by occupation master of a ves- 

 Experieuce. scl. Havc bceu in the employ of the Alaska Commer- 



cial Com])any since 1881, and in the discharge of my 

 duties have visited annually, with one exiieiition, the different trading 

 posts on the islands of the Aleutian Archipelago, and on the Alaskan 

 coast in the Bering Sea as far north as St. Michaels, and prior to 1890 

 I went annually to the seal islands in Bering Sea, and frequently vis- 

 ited the seal rookeries on the same. I have noticed a 

 decrease in number of seals from year to year in the 

 waters of the Bering Sea since about 1886, and for the last three years 

 the decrease has been very rapid. Up to about 1884 the Bering Sea 

 around the Pril)ilof Islands, and between said islands and the passes, 

 was swarming with seals during the breeding season, but for the last 

 few years the decrease in numbers has been so marked that I could 

 not fail to notice it. I never have known or heard of far seals hauling 



