78 INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 



CENSUS OF LITTLE POLOVINA ROOKERY. 



[Field notes to accompany the chart and survey of condition of Little Polovina rookery, St. Pauls Island, 

 Pribilof group, July 15, 1913, by Henry W. Elliott and A. F. Gallagher, special agents House Committee 

 on Expenditures in the Department of Commerce.] 



(The condition of the rookery, when comparison is made with that 

 of 1890, is founded upon the published official survey made by Henry 

 W. Elliott and Charles J. Goff, July 10, 1890, and duly published as 

 House Document 175, Fifty-fourth Congress, first session, pages 

 31, 32, 33.) 



We begin our survey at station C, and up to station B every vestige 

 of seal life has disappeared, as compared with the survey of 1890. 



From the latter station we find 21 bulls and about 800 to 1,000 

 cows; "no polsecatchie in the rear," and, in fact, no young bulls any- 

 where in sight. The life then abruptly ceases and from this station 

 to station D not a vestige remains. There are no holluschickie in 

 or around this rookery or in sight. 1 



To recapitulate. — For Little Polovina, July 15, 1913, we find 21 

 bulls, 1,000 cows, 900 pups; for Polovina rookery, July 15, 1913, we 

 find 72 bulls, 8,005 cows, 7,200 pups. On both Polovinas, season 

 of 1890, there were 1,850 bulls, 71,000 cows, 70,250 pups; season of 

 1874, there were 8,600 bulls, 150,000 cows, 148,500 pups. 



CENSUS OF NOVASTOSHNAH ROOKERY. 



[Field notes to accompany the chart and survey of condition of Novastoshnah rookery, St. Pauls Island, 

 Pribilof Group, Tuesday, July 15, 1913, by Henry W. Elliott and A. F. Gallagher, special agents House 

 Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Commerce.] 



(The condition of the rookery, when comparison is made with that 

 of 1890, is founded upon the published and official survey made by 

 Henry W. Elliott and Charles J. Goff, July 10, 1890, and duly pub- 

 lished as House Document 175, Fifty-fourth Congress, first session, 

 pages 31, 32, 33.) 



As we open and begin our review of this rookery of Novastoshnah 

 to day, we start in at Websters Point and traverse the abandoned 

 hauling grounds of 1874 to Pulpit Point. At station A is where the 

 breeding grounds of 1 874 ended on this side of Novastoshnah. From 

 Pulpit Point to the sand beach, between station B and station A of 

 the 1 890 survey, not a single seal is in sight to day. Crossing over 

 that sand beach to station A, we find the small hauling grounds of 

 1890 entirely abandoned, no sign of any holluschickie on them, not 

 a single polsecatchie; a small pod of holluschickie is hauled out on 

 rocks awash under A, which are the last remnant of thousands once 



1 In 1ST2-1S74 there were two great hauling grounds which were never visited at any time by the natives 

 who were getting seals for the lessees; they were never even looked at or thought of by anybody when 

 Elliott was surveying the herd then— the Southwest Point hauling grounds, where at least 60,000 to 80,000 

 large 3 and 4 year old seals gathered fairly alone by themselves, and the Dalnoi hauling grounds, just mid- 

 wav between" Little Polovina and Novostoshnah. 



The natives told us that they had first "driven" the "big seals "at Southwest Point in 1SS6; they had by 

 18S9 completely finished the life there, and to-day, July 24, 1913, they told us that not a seal has ever hauled 

 out there since. 



They made their last drive from Dalnoi in 1896; not a seal has hauled there since; in 1890 they drove less 

 than 100 from it. This shrinking to disappearance of the surplus male life long, long before any great loss 

 of the female life has never aroused that interest which it deserved by the casual observers who have been 

 on these islands at intervals since 1890 to date. The natives, however, in 1890 were much concerned about 

 it, and declared that the work of the pelagic sealer was then not near as deadly for the seal herd's existence, 

 nor was the killing on land as it had been conducted ever since 1883. 



In 1872-1874 they declared that under the Russian regime, 1800-1834, the continued annual killing of the 

 young male seals just as the lessees have been killing them since 1871-1909) had so reduced the herd that 

 thev were compelled to give it a 10 vears' rest; they said that in 1834 there were "only about 500 cows alive 

 on Polovina," etc. (See Elliott's Mono. Seal Islands, 1882, 10th Census, p. 49.) 



