56 ALASKA. 



Aleutian Islands and south of the peninsula of .A.l;iska, with 

 perhaps a hundred and fifty more from Kenai, Yahkutat, and 

 the Sitka'n district; the Hudson's Bay Company an^ other 

 traders getting about two hundred more from the coast of Queen 

 Charlotte's and Vancouver's Islands, and off Gray's Harbor, 

 Washington Territory. 



Now, during the last season, 1873, instead of less than seven 

 hundred skins, as obtained by the Eussians, our traders secured 

 not much less than four thousand skins. This immense differ- 

 ence is not due to the fact of there being a proportionate in- 

 crease of sea-otters, but to the organization of hunting-parties 

 in the same spirit and fashion as in the early days above men- 

 tioned. The keen competition of our traders will ruin the busi- 

 ness in a comparatively short time if some action is not taken 

 by the Government ; and to the credit of these traders let it be 

 said, that while they cannot desist, for if they do others will 

 step in and profit at their expense, yet they are anxious that 

 some prohibition should be laid upon the business. This can 

 be easily done, and in such a manner as to perpetuate the sea- 

 otter, not only for themselves, but for the natives, who are de- 

 pendent upon its hunting for a living which makes them supe- 

 rior to savages. 



Over two-thirds of all the sea-otters taken in Alaska are 

 secured in two small areas of water, little rocky islets and reefs 

 around the island of Saanach and the Chernobours, which 

 proves that these animals, in spite of the incessant hunting all 

 the year round, on this ground, seem to have some particular 

 preference for it to the practical exclusion of nearly all the rest 

 of the coast in the Territory. This may bo due to its better 

 adaptation as a breeding-ground. It is also noteworthy that 

 all the sea-otters taken below the Straits of Fuca are shot by 

 the Indians and white hunters off the beach in the surf at 

 Gray's Harbor, a stretch of less than twenty miles ; here some 

 fifty to a hundred are taken every year, while not half that 

 number can be obtained from all the rest of the Oregon and 

 Washington coast-line ; there is nothing in the external appear- 

 ance of this reach to cause its selection by the sea-otters, ex- 

 cept perhaps that it may be a little less rocky. 



As matters are now conducted by the hunting parties, the 

 sea-otters at Saanach and the Chernobours do not have a day's 

 rest during the whole year. Parties relieve each other in suc- 

 cession, and a continual warfare is maintained. This persistence 



