FUR SEALS OF ALASKA. 75 
This seems to have given Mr. Cortelyou a warning which so impressed him that 
he omits the regular stale official untruth in his report about ‘‘pelagic sealing as 
being the sole cause of loss of life in the fur-seal herd.”’ 
These cows have not increased; but they have not decreased, in proportion, half, 
or a three-quarter rate even, as fast as the old males have. There is where the danger 
lies at this hour. ; 
Henry W. Exuiorr. 
Exuisir J. 
The following tabulations are from the report of the Ways and Means Committee 
of June 2, 1902. The first table shows the close similarity of— 
CONTRAST BETWEEN THE RUSSIAN AND AMERICAN RECORDS OF DECLINE IN THE LIFE OF 
THE PRIBILOF FUR-SEAL HERD. 
The Canadian hunter will never voluntarily give up an industry that is paying 
him over 100 per cent profit, no matter what the ultimate consequence to mankind 
or seal life may be of his continuing in the business of pelagic sealing. Long before 
he ceases to find female seals at sea the young male life will have been destroyed on 
the islands. In proof of this statement your committee submit the following statis- 
tics covering the period of Russian diminution, 1817-1834, with that of the American 
period, beginning in 1889: 
The Russian : ; 
period of diminution, The American period of diminution, 1889-1907. 
1817-1834. 
; Remarks. 
Year. eee Year. foe (‘‘Prime”’ skin, 8 to 9 pounds; ‘‘short”’ skin, 6 pounds; 
“ eye plasters,’’ 4 to 44 pounds.) 
100,000 | 3 ‘‘prime’’ skins, } ‘‘short”’ skins, } ‘‘eye plasters,” 
28,000 | 4 ‘‘prime”’ skins, 4 ‘‘short’’ skins. 
14,000 | All oo skins. Modus vivendi. 
0. 
7,500 Do. 
16,084 | All ‘‘ prime” skins. 
15,000 | ¢ ‘‘prime”® skins, } ‘short.’ 
30,000 | + ‘‘prime’’ skins, 4 ‘‘short,’’ 3 ‘‘eye plasters.” 
20,766 | + ‘‘prime”’ skins, 3 ‘‘short.” 
18, 032 Do. 
16, 812 Do. 
22,470 | 3 ‘“‘prime”’ skins, } ‘‘short,’’ 3 ‘‘eye plasters.” 
22, 672 ee “prime’’ skins, 7 ‘‘short,” 7 ‘‘ eye plasters.” 
+ ‘short”’ skins, ¢ ‘eye plasters;’’ can or will be taken, 
16,000 | All ‘‘eye plasters;’’ can or will be taken. 
Do. 
8, 000 Do. 
Do. 
None. | The end of the young male life on the islands. 
“Prime” seals are 3 and 4 year olds; ‘‘short”’ are 2-year-olds; ‘‘eye plasters” are 1-year-olds.] 
n 1834 only 8,118 young seals, males and females, were left alive to breed on St. Paul Island. In 
1835 the Russians sropped. the kiliing, and so saved the herd from immediate extermination. 
NoTE.—Since 1890 the male life above the age of pups has been reduced by land and sea killing 
from the proportion of nearly one-half of the total number in 1874 to less than one-fifth in 1890, and 
it is doubtful if it amounts to more than one-eighth of the total for this year. The 224,000 seals of all 
classes as estimated on the islands for 1962 will consist of about 4,000 old bulls, 100,000 females, 80,000 
pups, and 40,000 yearlings. Half of these yearlings are males. When they return this summer as 
yearlings they will all be taken as they haul out on the islands between May and November. If any 
of them escape, they are sure to be taken as 2-year-olds in 1903. Their skins are too valuable to 
be left for the Canadians, who will get them if our people do not kill them, so the candle is burning 
at both ends, and furiously. It is easy to understand the end of it by the sudden elimination of this 
male life not later than 1906, under existing laws, regulations, and trade conditions. 
The Russian figures in the foregoing table are taken from Veniaminov, Zapieskie, 
and those relating to our own work, 1889-1901, are from the trade catalogues of the 
London sales, where the Alaskan skins have all been sold at public auction since 
1871. The significant classification of sizes annually taken on the islands, which 
declares that in 1901 we were draining the dregs of the male life, is found in these 
records of the London sales, and there is no appeal from the perfect truth of the 
figures. (Report No. 2303, Ways and Means Committee, June 2, 1902, 57th Cong., 
Ist sess., pp. 4-5.) 
