APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 705 
the Reef Rookery and Zoltoi hauling-grounds combined, and about 1,417 were driven: 
total killed, 206, 85} per cent. turned away. This exhausted Zoltoi hanling-grounds 
for a period of twenty-one days, and it was not available until the 19th July, when 
again, in connection with the Reef Rookery, the last drive was made, and about 
3,956 seals were driven, 556 were killed, and 86 per cent. turned away. The seals 
turned away from the several drives invariably returned to the hauling-grounds and 
rookery from which they were driven only to be redriven to the killing-field, and 
culled of the few killables that chanced to join them upon their return to the sea 
from each drive. By referring to the Table marked (D), showing the daily killing 
for this year, and also comparing the same with that of last year, vou will see that 
from all of the drives the same percentages were turned away as from those I have 
cited. 
We opened the season by a drive from the Reef Rookery, and turned away 834 per 
cent., when we should have turned away about 15 per cent. of the seals driven, and 
we closed the season by turning away 86 per cent.,a fact which proves to every 
impartial 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, 
On Sunday, 20th July, all the rookeries presenting any male seals were driven from 
English Bay, Middle Hill, Tolstoi, Lukaunon, Keetavia, and Rocky Point, and about 
4,620 seals were brought to the killing field; 780 were killed, and 83 per cent. were 
turned away. On the same day at North-east Point they killed 466, which, added to 
those taken at the other rookeries, makes a grand total of 1,246. 
This, and the killing on the 19th July, are the only instances recorded during the 
season when the daily killing reached 1,000. Comparing the killings with those of 
the same dates last year, we find that on the 19th July, 1889, from South-west Bay 
hauling-grounds alone, 1,987 were killed, and on the 20th July, 1889, from the Reef 
Rookery and Zoltoi hauling-grounds 1,913 were killed, and never were there such 
percentages turned away during the entire season nor in any previous season, to my 
knowledge, as in that of 1890. Itis true, however, that the Alaska Commercial Com- 
pany could and did take smaller seals last season than the present lessees can take, 
because of the differences in the tax paid by them, yet there have been no two-year- 
olds of an average size turned away this season, they were all immediately clubbed 
to swell the season’s catch, which is far below the number allowed for this year, a 
condition of affairs that will convey to the Department in language far more con- 
vineing than mine the fact that the seals are not here. 
The North American Commercial Company’s agent, Mr. George R. Tingle, used 
every effort to have the drives made so as to have no unnecessary loss of seal life, 
and he would have made the season a most successful one for the Company if the 
seals had returned to the rookeries as in the past. 
It is evident that the many preying evils upon seal life—the killing of the seals in 
the Pacific Ocean along the Aleutian Islands, and as they come through the passes 
to the Behring’s Sea, by the pirates in these waters, and the indiscriminate slaughter 
upon the islands, regardless of the future life of the breeding rookeries, have at last 
with their combined destructive power reduced these rookeries to their pres- 
17 ent impoverished condition, and to such an unequal distribution of ages and 
sexes, that it is but a question of a few years, unless immediately attended to, 
before the seal family of the Pribylov group of islands will be a thing of the past. 
Notwithstanding the fact that the seals were looked upon as inexhaustible, and 
were officially reported to be increasing as late as 1888, the time has suddenly come 
when experiment and imagination must cease, and the truth be told. 
Absolute protection is the only safeguard for the rookeries, and the only step to be 
taken with safety. The seal meat necessary for the natives’ food is all that should 
be killed under existing circumstances. Much can be written on this subject, many 
theories may be advanced, all of which we have had for the past twenty years, to the 
evident loss of seal life; but the facts presented in the accompanying Tables demon- 
strate with mathematical certainty the fearful decrease of the seals; and here I will 
say I heartily concur with my worthy predecessor, Mr. George R. Tingle, who, in his 
official Report of 1887, used the following language: 
“The Department cannot place too high an estimate on the value of this seal 
property, and the Government, I am sure, will not yield to any demands which 
would make it possible to accomplish the destruction of her seal rookeries and seal 
life, which under judicious management and protection by law may be perpetuated 
indefinitely.” 
There is but one authority upon seal life, especially the seals of the Pribylov 
Islands, and this is the work of Professor Henry W. Elliott, who surveyed these 
rookeries in 1872 and 1874, and his work was verified by Lieutenant Maynard, and I 
am satisfied was as near correct when made as was possible for man to chronicle, 
but to-day there is a marked contrast in the condition of now and then. On p. 54 
BS, PT V 45 
