RELATING TO TRIBILOF ISLANDS. 51 



ble to visit tlie islands in 1883, 1884, and 1885. I left the rookeries in 

 1882 in their fullest and best condition, and found them in 1886 already 

 showing- slight falling o% and experienced that year for the first time 

 some difficulty in securing just the class of animals in every case that 

 we desired. We, however, obtained the full catch in that and the two 

 following years, finishing the work from the 21th to the 27th of July 

 but were obliged, particularly in 1888, to content ourselves with smaller 

 skins than we had heretofore taken. This was in part due to the neces- 

 sity of turning back to the rookeries many half-grown bulls, owing to 

 the notable scarcity of breeding males. I should have been glad to 

 have ordered them killed instead, but under your instructions to see 

 that the best interests of the rookeries were conserved, thought best to 

 reject theiu. The result of killing from year to year a large and increas- 

 ing number of .".mall animals is very apparent. We are simply draw- 

 ing in advance ujion the stock that should be kept over for anotlier 

 year's growth." 



In the process of securing the annunl catch of seals for their skins, 

 the breeding animals were very little disturbed. Iso Disturi.ance ot the 

 one was allowed to molest them; dogs were banished rookeries. 

 from the islands. The use of firearms was forbidden. The rendering 

 of oil from seal-blubber was stoi>ped after the second year's trial, be- 

 cause the smoke and odor seemed to disturb tlie rookeries near the works, 

 and every i)recaution was adopted which good husbandry could sug- 

 gest for the perpetuation of the industry. The seals were apparently 

 subject to no diseases; the pups were always fat and healthy, and dead 

 ones very rarely seen on or about the rookeries prior to 1884. Upon 

 my return to the islands in 1886, I was told by my as- ^_^^^ 

 sistants and the natives that a very large number of ^^ ^^^^^' 

 pups had perished the preceding season, a part of them dying upon the 

 islands, and others being washed ashore, all seeming to have starved to 

 death. The same thing occurred in 1886, and in each of the following 

 years to and including 1889. Even before I left the islands in August, 

 1886, 1887, and 1888, I saw hundreds of half-starved, bleating, ema- 

 ciated pups, wandering aimlessly about in search of their dams, and 

 presenting a most pitiable appearance. For if the mother seals are 

 destroyed, their young can not but perish; no other dam will suckle 

 them; nor can they subsist until at least three or four months old with- 

 out the mother's milk. The loss of this vast number of pups, ainount- 

 ing to many thousands, we could attribute to no other cause than the 

 death of the mother at the hands of pelagic seal hunters. 



Between 1874 and 1883 predatory vessels occasionally appeared in 

 Bering Sea, among them the Cygnet in 1874 and the 

 San Diego in 1876, but the whole number of seals de- I'oac'iers. 

 stroyed by such vessels was small, and had no appre- Cygnet, i874. 

 ciable effect upon the rookeries; in 1884 about 4,000 san Diego,\iiG. 

 skins were taken in Bering Sea by three vessels, and 

 starved pups were noticed upon the islands that year for the first time. 

 In 1885 about 10,000 skins were taken in this sea, and 

 the dead pups upon the rookeries became so numer- o/XlTpups "and^of 

 ous as to evoke comment from the natives and others poachers. 

 upon the islands. From 1885 to the present time the 

 fleet of predatory vessels has constantly increased in proportion as 

 the seal herd has decreased. From 1869 to 1882 the seal rookeries 

 largely increased. I know this from accuiate personal observation, 

 and reported relative to it to the Alaska Commercial 

 Company July 16, 1889, as follows: "The breeding i^ToTim^Lmt 



