128 TESTIMOJ^Y 



Dejjosition of Aggie Kushin, assistant priest on St. Paul Island, and em- 

 ploye of lessees. 



MANAGEMENT, HABITS 



Alaska, TJ. S. A., 



St. Faul Island, Pribilof Grotip, ss: 

 Aggie Kusliiii, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I was born at 

 Simshoe, Kiirile Islands, and am 37 years of age. I 

 Experience. ^^^^ ^^ g^_ p^^^^ Island in 18G7 and have resided here 



ever since. I can read and write in the Enssian and Aleut languages, 

 and am able to interpret the one into the other; and I understand the 

 Ihiglish language fairly well. At present and for several years past 

 I am assistant priest in the Greek Catholic Church. My occupation 

 oil the island is that of native sealer, and 1 have been such since 1870. 



I have a thorough knowledge of the taking of fur 

 18^0^1884''"*'^^"'°' seals for skins in all its details as it has been done on 



St. Paul Island since 1870. From 1870 to about 1884 

 the seal rookeries were always filled out to their limits, and sometimes 

 beyond them. 

 About 1885 a decrease was observed, and that decrease has become 



more marked every year from 1885 to the present time. 



Decrease siuce 1885. -r t i i j? -i oo < ^ t. 



I never saw many sealing schooners betore 1884, but 

 they have been coming more and more every year since, and I notice 

 that as the schooners multiply in the sea the seals decrease on the 

 rookeries. I do not mean to say that the seals Avere injured because a 

 few were killed on the rookeries, when men from schooners landed on 

 the islands in the night or when the fog was very thick, for the num- 

 bers killed in that way never amounted to much, as it 

 ^^^^^- is not often the raiders can land on a rookery and es- 



cape with their plunder. When, in 1886, we all saw the decrease of seals 

 upon the hauling grounds and rookeries, we asked each other what was 

 tlie cause of it, but when we learned that white men were shooting 

 seals in the water with guns we knew what was the matter; we knew 

 that if they killed seals in the water that they must be nearly all 

 females that were going out to feed, for the males stay on the islands 

 until they get ready to go away in the fall or winter. It was among 



the cows we first noticed the decrease, and as we never 

 ishindl. ''°'' '''^^'''^ ''" ^^i^^ the cows on the islands, we knew they must be 



killing them in the water. We noticed idle vigorous 



bulls on the breeding rookeries, because of the scarcity of cows, and I 



have noticed that the cows have decreased steadily every year since 



1886, but more particularly so in 1888, 1889, 1890, and 1891. 



There was a great number of dead pups upon the rookeries last year, 



wiiose mothers, I believe, were killed at sea by sealing 

 ea pups. schooners and I do not exiiect to see many cows this 



year. I never saw a dead grown seal on the island during my twenty- 

 five years' residence here, except odd ones that had been killed in 

 fighting for places on the rookeries. 



I never heard any of the old men who have lived here for fifty years 



before mv time speak of such a thing as sickness or 

 eaSsVmtiiTaoaiL'^''" ^^ath aiiiong the seals. Wc eat the flesh of the seal 



and it constitutes the meat supply of the natives, and 

 seals from two to five years old have been killed by them for food every 

 week dimiig their stay on the land ever since the islands were i)Copled, 

 uud no one hus yet found ti diseased seal either young or old. 



