RELATING TO PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 39 



pups lying about. These pups were very much emaciated, and evidently 

 had been starved to death. I account for this by the killing of the 

 mothers by open-sea sealers before the pups were weaned, and because 

 a mother will not suckle any pup except her own. 



In 1887 the number of dead pups was much larger than in 1886. In 

 1888 there was a less number than in 1887, or in 1889, owing, as I be- 

 lieve, to a decrease of seals killed in Bering Sea that year; but in 1889 

 the increase again showed itself I believe the number of dead pups 

 increased in about the same ratio as the number of seals taken in Ber- 

 ing Sea by pelagic sealers. While I was on the island 

 there were not more than three or four raids on the 

 rookeries to my knowledge, and I thiidi that the destruction to seal 

 life by raiding rookeries is a small part of 1 per cent as Great, ma joritykuied 

 compared with the numbers taken by killing in the ^^jrof^'^h-ch^^rre 

 water. Another fact in connection with open-sea seal- pregnant ^r^nurslng 

 ing is that the great majority of seals killed are fe- *^"^'®- 

 males, and that a great part of the females are pregnant, or in milk. 

 The milking females are most all killed while visiting the teediug 

 grounds, which are distant 40 or 60 miles, or even far- ^ ^^^^^ foedin°- 

 ther, from the islands. The female necessarily feeds so ^™^ '^^ ^'^ '°^' 

 she can su^^ply nourishment for her young, while the males during the 

 summer seldom leave the islands. This accounts for 

 the large number of females killed in Bering Sea. In ge?DoUy!''i887.''^''' 

 July, 1887, I captured the i^oaching schooner Ayigel 

 Doily while she was hovering about the islands. I examined the seal 

 skins she had on board, and about 80 per cent were 

 skins of females. In 1888 or 1889 1 examined something Eighty per cent of 

 like 5,000 skins at Unalaska which had been taken i^'f/,. °° ^"^"^ ^"- 

 from schooners engage! in pelagic sealing in Bering 

 Sea, and at least 80 to 85 per cent were skins of fe- othe^r pTadfers" 

 males. 



I have conversed with the captains of several marauding schooners, 

 and others who were employed in pelagic sealing have informed me 

 that they usually use rilles in shooting seals in the 

 water. Some, however, use shotguns, but to no great peillilfSug!^*^ '° 

 extent. From these conversations I should judge 

 they did not secure more than one-half of the seals killed; and this, I 

 think, is a large estimate of the number secured. I am of the oj)inion 

 that the Pribilof seal herd should be protected both in 

 Bering Sea and the North Pacific Ocean. If an imag- gar™*'^''*^'''" 

 inary line were drawn about the islands, 30 or 40 miles 

 distant therefi-om, within which sealing would be prohibited, this would 

 be little protection to seal life, for all the poachers 

 whom I interviewed acknowledged that they could get bu't iiTtie pTotectSu".*^ 

 more seals in the water near the fishing banks, 30, 

 40, or more miles from the islands, than in the immediate vicinity 

 thereof, and the hunters on the schooners always complained if they 

 got much nearer than 40 miles of the islands. I am certain that even 

 if sealing were prohibited entirely upon the islands the seal herd would 

 in a short time be exterminated by pelagic sealing, if x)ermitted, because 

 the females, that is, the producers, are the seals principally killed by 

 open-sea sealing. 



Abial p. Loud. 



Subscribed and s^'orn to before me, a notary public in the District 

 of Columbia, this 15th day of Ai)ril, 1892. 



[L. s.] OiiAs. L. Hughes, 



Notary Public. 



ces- 

 sary. 



