184 INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 



yearlings which the drivers of the company could secure; he urged a 

 complete cessation of it for a term of years. 



VI. It is a fact of indisputable record that this request of Gen. 

 Yahnovsky was ignored by the directors, and the orders to get all of 

 the young male seals and yearlings were annually renewed; and 



VII. It is a fact of indisputable record that at the end of the season 

 of 1834 instead of getting 20,000 holluschickie they secured with the 

 "Utmost exertion" only 12,000 "small" (yearling) seals; and that 

 with the end of this season's work the herd was so reduced that the 

 directors were obliged to order a 10 years' rest to all commercial kill- 

 ing on the islands, which went into effect in the summer of 1834, and 

 was faithfully enforced; so that by 1844 commercial killing was re- 

 sumed of a relatively small number, beginning with 10,000 to 13,000, 

 increasing gradually annually up to 1857, when this herd yielded 

 that year 62,000 "choice young male" seals, and the herd itself had 

 regained its natural and normal maximum number, viz, from 4,500,000 

 to 5,000,000 seals of all classes. 



VIII. It is a fact that during all this period of decline and restora- 

 tion of the Russian herd from 1800 to 1857 there was nothing known 

 of or hinted at which is now so well known as "pelagic sealing." 



IX. It is a fact that when we took possession of the herd we 

 leased them to a corporation, with a permit to take annually 100,000 

 young male seals, or 40,000 more every year than had been the 

 average number taken by the Russian management since 1857. 



X. It is a fact of indisputable record that by 1883 our lessees had 

 great difficulty in getting their quota this year of 100,000 "prune" 

 3 and 4 year old skins; that they began to scour the hauling grounds 

 for them and increased the rigor of that search .and driving annually 

 thereafter. 



XI. It is a fact of indisputable record that up to this time of first 

 difficulty since 1870 of getting annually 100,000 fine young male seals 

 no pelagic sealing of the slightest consequence was in operation. 

 Only six or seven small vessels, busy for a few weeks in the year off the 

 Straits of Fuca and west coast of Vancouver Island, had appeared in 

 the sea up to the opening of the season of 1886. 



1. Therefore in the light, as above clearly and fairly thrown by 

 these records of past experience, we now know that the Pribilof herd 

 was reduced to the very same commercial ruin by 1834 which we now 

 find our herd reduced to in 1913. 



2. And that this ruin of 1834, and again in 1913, was caused by the 

 very same close killing annually of all the young male seals and year- 

 lings that could be secured by the greedy Russian contractors and by 

 our lessees. 



3. And that the Russians to save and restore the herd were com- 

 pelled to stop this excessive and improper kilhng in 1834 and suspend 

 any commercial killing on the islands for 10 years thereafter, or up to 

 1 844-1 S46. 



4. And that the experiment of annually taking 100,000 choice, 

 young male seals since 1870 up to 1890 by our lessees, as against the 

 habit of taking 60,000 annually by the Russian lessees, was a bad 

 one: and that this number of 100,000 "surplus male seals" was an 

 excessive and destructive kilhng, which has led to a complete elimi- 

 nation of the breeding male life of the herd, as we see it to day, and 

 which policy if continued will surely exterminate the species itself. 



