78 



THE ASIATIC FUR-SEAL ISLANDS. 



British flag, and having 1,500 seal skins ou board (Brit. Behring Sea Comm. Eep., p. 

 89). Of these 1,200 were secured on Eobben Island, according to Snow. 



The latest raid on Eobben Island was undertaken on October 29, 1895. The 

 British schooner Saipan (now the Silver Fleece), sailing from Yokohama early in 

 October ostensibly on a shark-flshing expedition, landed 17 of her ciew on Eobben 

 Island. She sailed away, promising to return in eight days. In the meantime the 

 Eussian transport Yakut, which did patrol duty around the Commander Islands 

 during the summer and had already taken the guard off the island, returned 

 unexpectedly, and found the 17 men with a great number of slaughtered seals. They 

 were arrested and brought to Vladivostok. The schooner returned to the island too 

 late, and thus escaped capture. The men were condemned to work on the roads and 

 streets in Vladivostok. As one of the British commissioners has alluded to the 

 incident ' it is necessary to refer more specifically to the deplorable raiding of the 

 Eobben Island rookery by some of the very ofQcers and men who were stationed 

 there to protect it. It is said (for official statements have not been forthcoming) that 

 officers of the guards in 1893 and 1894, as well as the then captain of the guard ship 

 Yakut, were involved in the scandal. It was carried to such an extent that salt was 

 brought from Vladivostok in this vessel, and that the skins, which were taken away in 

 a chartered schooner, were secured on land after the Aleut workmen had been taken 

 off" by the company's vessel in the fall of the year. The secret finally leaked out and 

 a court martial investigated, with the result that one of the younger officers committed 

 suicide and the captain alluded to was compelled to leave the navy. When my 

 information closed it was uncertain whether further punishment would be meted out. 

 It it estimated that about 3,000 skins were taken in this way, though the figure is 

 very uncertain. 



Oapt. T). Groenberg, of the Bohrik, in 1895 reported that females were present in 

 fair numbers and that the proportion of bulls to females was about 1 in 40. The 

 weight of the skins taken was good, and yearlings were quite scarce. He also 

 mentioned having observed an unusual number of dead pups. 



Number of skins taken by the lessees of Bobben, Island from 1871 to 1897. 



The total number of seals known to have been killed illegally by the raiders and 

 others on Eobben Island between 1878 and 1895 amounts to the astonishing figure of 



'Barrett-Hamilton's Report on the Russian Seal Islands in the North Pacific, 1896, p. 5: "It is 

 now an open secret tbat within very recent years the guard appointed to protect the island betrayed 

 their trust, and participated in the unlicensed slaughter." 



