IX.-PELAGIC SEALING. 



WITH NOTES ON THE FUR SEALS OF GUADALUPE, THE GALAPAGOS, AND LOBOS 



ISLANDS. 



By CnARLKS H. Townsend. 



The first pelagic sealing conducted from vessels appearsto have been done off the 

 coast of Vancouver Island between 1871 and 1878. The history of this sealing is 

 involved in obscurity, but a pelagic-sealing industry in connection with coastwise 

 trading among Indian villages gradually sprung up, and by 1880 there were four 

 vessels engaged. The catches made were not of much importauce, and the price of 

 skins was very low, ranging from $3 to $5. It was an outgrowth of the canoe sealing 

 by Indians that from time immemorial had been practiced in those waters. There are 

 no records to show that the vessels procured any important number of the skins 

 brought to market. It is not unlikely that the coast sealing regularly practiced by 

 the Indians was greatly stimulated during these years by the presence of the trading 

 vessels, and that the catch was largely made in this way, the vessels themselves 

 contributing but little toward the capture of the seals. 



The annual catch of the Indians under ordinary conditions has until recently 

 averaged between 2,000 and 3,000 skins. Subsequent to 1880 the few vessels trading in 

 this region increased in number and became practically pelagic sealers. So far as 

 known the crews were composed chiefly of Indians. The vessels being regarded as 

 traders, no satisfactory records were kept as to the source of the seal skins brought 

 to port. 



In a private log kept by John D. Ford on the schooner Undaunted, engaged in 

 sea-otter hunting in 1880, it is stated that 70 otters and 1,425 seals were taken. There 

 are comparatively few references to seals, most of the log being taken up with notes 

 on the otter hunting from day to day. The vessel left San Francisco on May 5, and 

 returned to Victoria on September 10. The hunting was done on the south side of 

 the Alaska Peninsula. There are references to previous sealing by members of the 

 crew at Eobben Island, in the Kurile Islands with the schooner Caroline, and at Cape 

 Horn. 



By 1883 there were eight or nine Canadian vessels engaged in sealing off" the 

 west coast of Vancouver Island. The average catch for vessels at this time was 

 about 500 skins, worth about $6 each. In 1884 the Canadian vessels began sealing in 

 Bering Sea, and one German vessel sailing from Japan began sealing in Bering Sea, 



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