XII.-FUR-SEAL HUNTING IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE. 



By Dr. J. A. Allen. 



Fur seals formerly existed in great numbers along portions of tlie southern coasts 

 of South America, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, on the outlying islands 

 off these coasts, and also on many of the pelagic islands of the southern oceans. Seal 

 hunting for commercial purposes began here during the closing decades of the last 

 century, and as early as the beginning of the present century the industry had 

 assumed gigantic proportions. The skins at this time and for many years after were 

 taken to the Canton market and exchanged for teas, silks, and other well-known prod- 

 ucts of the Chinese Empire. The price obtained for the skins was small in comparison 

 to their value in later years, usually ranging from 50 cents to $4 or $5 per skin. Yet 

 the sealing business proved immensely profitable, and led to an indiscriminate and 

 exterminating slaughter. One after another of the populous seal rookeries was vis- 

 ited and reduced to the verge of extermination, followed by new voyages of discovery 

 in search of new sealing grounds, which in turn were quickly despoiled. Every seal 

 that could be obtained was killed regardless of age or sex. The fur seals generally 

 selected for their homes barren, volcanic islands, situated in stormy seas, often inac- 

 cessible except to the most venturesome, skillful, and hardy seamen. The seals that 

 escaped the hunters usually owed their preservation to the inaccessibility of their 

 haunts. 



Sealing first began in the southern hemisphere at the Falkland Islands about 

 1784. The immense fur-seal rookeries at the islands of Mas-a-Fuera and Juan Fernan- 

 dez were first visited in 1793, where millions were taken during the next fifteen years. 

 In the year 1800 the South Georgian rookeries were attacked and speedily exhausted. 

 In 1801 the sealing fleet at this island numbered thirty vessels, while an equal number 

 of vessels were employed during the same year in sealing off the coast of Chile. At 

 about this date sealing began on the Patagonian coast in the archipelago of Tierra 

 del Fuego, at St. Marys Island, off the coast of Chile, and at the St. Felix group. In 

 1803 and 1804 voyages were made to the coast of Australia, Borders Island, and the 

 Antipodes. In 1804-1806 seal rookeries were discovered at the Crozet and Prince 

 Edward islands. In 1820 the immense wealth of seal life at the South Shetlands was 

 discovered and the seals nearly exterminated in a single season. At the Auckland 

 Islands sealing began to be vigorously prosecuted in 1822 and 1823. At these and 

 numerous less noted fur-seal resorts sealing has been intermittently prosecuted from 

 the date of their discovery till the present time, although of late years the catch has 

 been small, and in many instances the vessels have made losing voyages. At most 



' Reprinted from Proo. Fur Seal Arb., Appendix to U. S. Case, Vol. I, p. 365. 



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