312 THE FUR SEALS OF THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 



speaks of St. Felix and St. Ambrose islands as being visited by the sealers, the greater 

 part of the catch being taken from St. Felix, the larger island of the group.^ 



In 1816 Capt. Edward Fanning took 14,000 fur-seal skins at St. Marys.'' He also 

 speaks of having visited these islands in 1801 and finding there a small fleet of 

 American sealers, five ships and a schooner.^ While it is impossible to give even 

 approximate statistics of the catch, the aggregate number of seals taken must have 

 been large^ 



At some of these islands small remnants of the former herds still exist, as shown 

 by the affidavits of Capt. Frank M. Gaffney and George Fogel. The latter states that 

 in 1870 he saw at Chiklaway thousands of fur seals; in 1891, however, there were "no 

 seals worth mentioning." In December, 1891, Captain Gaffney saw only two fur seals 

 at St. Felix and St. Ambrose islands, where formerly they were so abundant. At 

 Rees Islet (latitude 46° 45' south, longitude 75° 45' west) during a stay of two weeks 

 in December, 1891, he obtained one seal. He says, however, that they still breed 

 there, but that the Chilians go there and kill all they can obtain, as has been the 

 case for many years at other islands off the Chilean coast. Hence there is little oppor- 

 tunity for the recuperation of the seal herds. 



TIEREA DEL PUEGO AND THE PATAGONIAN COASTS. 



The group of islands south of Patagonia known as Tierra del Fuego, with which 

 may be here included the Diego Ramirez group, are celebrated for the number of sea 

 elephants and fur seals which they have yielded to commerce, as are also the coasts 

 and outlying islands of Patagonia. Without going into details as to the former 

 abundance of fur seals in this general region, it may suffice to show that at present 

 the species is practically extinct, at least in a commercial sense. Says Captain B ud- 

 dington (affldavit), great numbers were formerly taken on the east coast of Patagonia; 

 at the present time there are no seals there. There are not enough on the Patagonian 

 coast to pay for hunting them. He says that in 1881 he took 600 fur seals on the 

 western coast,at Pictou Landing. In 1889 he again visited this coast and obtained 

 only four skins. 



At Tierra del Fuego and the adjacent islands he took 5,000 skins during the 

 season of 1879-80; in 1891-92 he obtained only 900, and these came from another 

 part of the coast. Formerly thousands of skins were taken there, "but the animals 

 are practically extinct there to-day." 



Mr. George Comer states (afSdavit) that he spent the years 1879 to 1882 about 

 Tierra del Fuego and the coasts of Patagonia and Chile, on a three years' sealing 

 cruise. During these three years, he says, "our catch was 4,000 seals, 2,000 of which 

 were taken the first year, and we practically cleaned the rookeries out." 



The testimony of Capt. Caleb Lindahl (afftdavit), a sealer of long experience, is 

 to the same effect. He states that in October, 1891, he went on a sealing cruise to the 

 South Seas, starting in sealing off the coast of Patagonia and sealing there and in 

 sthe neighboring seas till the following March. He says: 



The seals are nearly all killed off down there, so that we got only ahout twenty skins. It is no 

 use for vessels to go there sealing any more. I was there twelve years ago on a sealing expedition 

 and the rookeries were full of seals. Now they are nearly all gone. They never gave the seals a 

 chance to breed there. They shot them as soon as they came up on, the rocks. 



' Voyages and Travels, p. 354. '^Voyages, etc., p. 411. ''Ibid., p. 306. 



