FUK-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 117 



Q. To what do you attribute that ? — A. To the maraudiug that baa 

 been carried on in Bering Sea. 



Q. What do you know, if anything, about the seals having been di- 

 verted from their regular channels of approach, and where do you find 

 that seals have been taken at other poiuts? — A. We have beeii accus- 

 tomed always to turn back from the killing grounds a sufHcient num- 

 ber of large bull seals for service upon the rookeries, and this number 

 has been greater or less in proportion to the apparent needs of the 

 rookeries. Complete order has been observed in stocking the rookeries 

 with male seals, and the business has been conducted generally, in this 

 respect, as a well-ordered cattle ranch would be. We have systematic- 

 ally allowed a sufficient number of bull seals to escape us for this 

 service. When we had exclusive control of the business and were un- 

 molested by marauders, we had no trouble in keeping the proportion 

 of the sexes so balanced as to secure best results in breeding ; but since 



1882, and more particularly since 1884, other parties have been killing 

 seals, of which a considerable percentage is males old enough for serv- 

 ice, ihus destroying the equilibrium of the sexes, compelling us to turn 

 back a larger number of service animals than formerly, the skins of 

 which are particularly desirable for market, and endangering the fut- 

 ure productiveness of the rookeries. There are at present, in my opin- 

 ion, too few bull seals to keep the rookeries up to their best condition, 

 During this last summer we have had to let go animals for breeding 

 purposes that we should have been glad to kill. 



Q. Supposing you had required 5,000 or 10,000 more to fill your quota 

 this year, could you have found them on the rockeries ? — A. I think it 

 doubtful whether we could have obtained any considerable additional 

 number of marketable skins. 



Q. State what proportion the number of seals captured at other places 

 bears to the diminution of the number at the Pribylov group. — A. 

 Going back to the early history of the business, the Indians about the 

 Straits of Fuca and in the waters adjacent to Vancouver's Island were 

 accustomed to send out their parties in canoes to the killing grounds 

 a few miles distant, and secure there perhaps from 1,000 to 5,000 skins 

 annually. Later in the history of the business, from 1878 to 1882 or 



1883, they acquired better facilities for hunting, and were enabled to 

 go further oft' and hunt more systematically, with the result of largely 

 increasing their catch. They sent to market during these years from 

 6,000 to 12,000 skins per year. After 1882 or 1883 the business was 

 taken up by white hunters, vessels were regularly fitted out at Victoria 

 and Port Townsend, usually manned, at least in part, by Indians, and 

 furnished with all the approved appliances for seal killing. 



By the Chairman : 



Q. Where did they do the killing ? — A. During the first few years, in 

 the Straits of Fuca and to the northward along the British Columbia 

 coast. Later they pursued them across to Kodiak Island and to the 

 westward among the Shumagin group along the Aliaskan peninsula. 

 Finally they went into Bering Sea, to some extent in 1882 and 1883, 

 and very extensively in the years following, so that in the year 18S5, 

 perhaps twenty vessels were engaged in the business there, and this 

 number was considerably increased in 188G and 1887. The catch during 

 the two latter years was more than 40,000 skins i)er year actually sent 

 to market, and i)robably five or six times as many more destroyed. 



Q. These 40,000 seals were killed in the water — killed in Bci iug Sea, 



