322 TESTIMONY 



will be a matter of a sliort time when the seal herd will he commercially 



destroyed. I think there should be what is called a 

 seaJon'^neife^l'a^y!^^"**'^ close seasoii ill seal-huntiug in the water, to extend from 



the 1st of Apiil till such time after the cows have given 

 birth to their young and have reared them to an age at which they can 



live without sustenance from their mother. The Indian 

 as^Limtcrs."*^ "^"'^'""^ huutcrs sccuie at least eight out of every ten of the 



seals that they spear. They do not make as much noise, 

 nor frighten the seals as badly as hunters who use guns. 



Louis Culler. 



Subscribed and sworn to before me this 7th day of May, 1892. 

 [SEAL.] Levi W. Myers, 



United ^States Consul. 



Dcjjosition of Alfred Dardean, sealer [hoat-pidhr.) 



pelagic sealing. 



Dominion of Canada, 



Victoria^ British Colnonhia, ss: 

 Alferd Dardean, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I reside at 



Victoria, British Columbia. My occupation for the last 

 Experience. i^^q years has bceii that of a seanmn. I went sealing 



iioiiie Adam., inter, ill tlie schooucr Mollie Adams (afterwards changed to 

 wards the £'. i'. Mar- E. B. Mcirvin) as boatpuller. We left Victoria, British 

 .m,i89o,mBeringSea. Columbia ou the 27th of May, 1890, and commenced 

 sealing up the coast toward Bering Sea; entered Bering Sea through 

 the Unamak Pass about July 7 and sealed around the eastern part of 

 Bering Sea until late in the fall. We caught over 900 skins before 

 entering the sea and our whole catch that year was 2,159 skins. Of 



the seals that were caught oft' the coast fully 90 out of 

 ^^^^^'^y^'"'^''^''^^^- every 100 had young pups in them. The boats would 



bring the seals killed onboard the vessel and we would 

 take the young pups out and skin them. If the pup is a good, nice one 

 we would skin it and keep it for ourselves. I had eight snch skins my- 

 self. Four out of five, if caught in May or June, would be alive when we 

 cut them out of the mothers. One of them we kept for pretty near three 

 weeks alive on deck by feeding it on condensed milk. One of the men 

 finally killed it because it cried so pitifully. We only got three seals 

 with pups in them in the Bering Sea. Most all of them were females 

 that had given birth to their young on the islands, and the milk would 



run out of the teats on the deck when we would skin 

 Females feeding. ^^^^^_ ^,^ caught female seals in milk more than 100 



miles off" the Pribilof Islands. 



We had seven boats, and a stern boat and three men to a boat. Our 



hunters used shotguns, and were good hunters. They lost a good many 



seals, but I do not know what proportion was lost to 



waste ot iiie. ^^^^^^ killed. Somc of the hunters would lose four out 



every six killed. We tried to shoot them Avhile asleep, but shot all that 



. . came in our way. If we killed them too dead a great 



n ibcnniina e. jj^.^j^y -^^ould siiik bcfore wc could get them and were 



lost. Sometimes we^ could get some of these that had sunk with the 



