RELATING TO PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 83 



In accordance with instructions from the Dei^artinent, the Treasury 

 agent is always present at the killings, and he has full power aud au- 

 thority to interfere in all cases where there is cruelty practiced or 

 attempted. 



All seals killed by the lessees for skins are killed between June 1 

 and July 30, and generally the season closes on the ^.,,. 



o/iii ^' T 1 KiUmg season. 



20th of July. 



After the regular season closes, in July, the natives kill, weekly, for 

 food, from one to two hundred male seals whose skins Seaisknied for food. 

 are large enough to be accepted as part of the next year's quota; and 

 it is during these "food" drives in August, September, and October 

 that an occasional female is accidentally killed. Being mixed with the 

 "bachelors" at this time, some females are driven and accidentally 

 killed. The killing of a female is the greatest crime Females killed only 

 known on the seal islands, and is never done inten- ^^ accident. 

 tionally. Of this I am most positive, for I know that every possible 

 precaution has been taken to guard against it; and I believe there has 

 not been one hundred females killed on St. George Island since 1880, 

 if I may except some killed by poachers who were driven off before 

 they secured the skins of the seals they had killed. 



Never since tlie islands have been American property, has there 

 been indiscriminate killing done upon them, nor has there been a de- 

 sire on the part of any<me connected with them to injure or damage 

 or waste seal life; on the contrary, everything has been done by the 

 lessees, past aud present, and by the United States, to foster and pro- 

 tect it, and to improve the methods of driving the seals, so that the 

 herds might grow and thrive and increase, and perpetuate them.selves 

 indefinitely. Laws, rules, and regulations were made from time to 

 time, i^rompted by experience, Avith a view to add to the . Laws, rules, etc., on 

 value of the property, and to abolish everything that tLu"of se^i Me.^'^'^^''*' 

 was not benehcial and in strict accord with tiie most humane principles. 

 To this end all long drives were prohibited, aud arrangements made 

 by which the killing grountls have been brought as near the iiauling 

 grounds as is practicable without being injurious to the breeding- 

 rookeries. 



Orders were issued by which the driving is regulated in such man- 

 ner that no hauling grounds are molested or disturbed more than 

 another, and, being taken in rotation, the seals are allowed several 

 days rest between drives. The rules for driving are so strict, so rig- 

 idly enforced, and so faithfully carried out, that I hardly know how 

 they could be improved upon. 



In my opinion the cows are the only seals that go into the sea to feed 

 from the time they haul out in May till they leave the 

 islands in InTo vein ber or December; and my opinion is tharLate^i°hindrto 

 based on the fact that the seals killed in May have *''"^*^- 

 plenty of food in their stomachs, mostly codfish, while those killed in 

 July iiave no signs of any thing like food in their stomachs. 



Again, the males killed for food as the season advances are found to 

 be poorer and poorer, and in all cases after July their stomachs are 

 empty. I am convinced, therefore, that none but mother seals go into 

 the sea to feed during the summer months, and this accounts for the 

 sudden decrease in the herd after the sealing schooners became so nu- 

 merous in Bering Sea, about 1884. The decrease in the number of seals 

 coming to the islands in the last three or four years ^ , , 



■, *^ •<• / J. ■ i 1 -.1 .1 Decrease of seals. 



became so manifest to everyone acquainted with the 



rookeries in earlier days that various theories have been advanced in 



