228 COUNTER-CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



We opened the season by a drive from the Reef rookery, and turned 

 away 83^ per cent., when we should have turned away about 

 266 ; 15 per cent, of the seals driven, and we closed the season by 

 turning awaj' 86 per cent., a fact which proves to every impar- 

 tial mind that we were redriving the yearlings, and considering the 

 number of skins obtained that it was impossible to secure the number 

 allowed by the lease, that we were merely torturing the young 

 seals, injuring the future life and vitality of the breeding rookeries 

 to the detriment of the lessees, natives, and the Government. 



MR. A. W. LAVENDER, 1800. 



j5ritish Case, Agent A. W. Laveiicler, reporting upon the same point, 



Appenflix, vol. oo^tc . 

 iii; "United '"^J ^ • 



fisoi)^" p ^1° ^' ^^^ *^'® male seals driven should be killed, as it is my opinion that 

 United State's not over one-half ever go back upon the rookeries again. 



Con^., 2nd Sess.. MR. W. PALMER, 1890. 



Ex. Doc. No. 49, ' 



^' ^' Another, and entirely independent observer, also refer- 



ring to the year 1890, in which interest became directed to 

 the state of the rookeries and the causes of their decline, 

 is found in Mr. W. Palmer, of the United States national 

 museum. In a paper read before the Biological Society of 

 Washington after his return from the Pribyloff Islands, 

 Mr. Palmer treats this subject at considerable length, and 

 evidently as the result of close observation. Folio wing- 

 some remarks on i^elagic sealing (of which, however, he 

 does not profess to speak from personal knowledge), he 

 writes : 



"Fores t and But pelagic seal fishing is not the only cause of the decrease of seal 

 Stieaiu" Oct o- life on the Pribyloffs. 



British Com- Probably an equal cause is the unnatural method of driving seals 

 missioners' Re- that has been followed on the islands since the first seal was captured, 

 port, pp. 187, 188. The mere killing of seals as conducted on the islands is as near per- 

 fection as it is possible to get it. . . . But the driving is a totally 

 different matter. I doubt if any one can look upon the painful exer- 

 tions of this dense crowding mass, and not think that somewhere and 

 somehow there is great room for improvement. It is conducted now 

 as it always has been : no thought or attention is given to it, and, with 

 but oneexceptiou, no other method has been suggested, or even thought 

 necessary. 



« » * » » 



The fur-seal is utterly unfitted by nature for an extended and rapid 

 safe journej^ on land. It will progress rapidly for a short distance, 

 but soon stops from sheer exhaustion. Its flippers are used as feet, 

 the belly is raised clear from the ground, and the motion is a jerky 

 but comparatively rapid lope. When exhausted the animal flops over 

 on its side as soon as it stops moving, being unable to stand up. 

 * # # » * 



The character of the ground over which the seals are driven is in 

 many places utterly unfit for the purpose; up and down the 

 267 steep slopes of sand dunes, over cinder hills studdrd with sharp 

 rocks, some places being so steep that tlu\v arc avoided by the 

 people themselves; but. the seals liave been dri\('u over the same 

 ground for many j'ears, and on some of the hills deep patbs have been 

 worn by the passing of tens of thousands of seals. No attempts 

 have been made to remove the rocks or to lessen the diificulties of the 

 passage, and the seals are still driven pell-mell over huge rocks and 

 down steep inclines, where many are crushed and injured by the hur- 

 rying mass of those behind The seals that are not killed 



are then driven away with tin pans and a great noise, and while in an 

 excited and over-heated condition, rush, as fast as it is possible for a 

 seal to go, into the icy-cold waters of Behring Sea. 



It will thus be seeu that tliese seals are subjected, on the average 

 from 2 o'clock in the morning until 10, to a long diive over very rough 



