82 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
Even if the fishermen should succeed in keeping these animals at bay 
with firearms, this would be possible only while they were working 
their nets in the fishing-grounds ; but as soon as the boats were gone 
the seals would do as much injury as before. In favorable weather nets 
and bow-nets remain in the water from twenty-four to forty-eight hours 
before they are hauled in and the fish taken out, while in stormy 
weather four or five days may pass before a boat will venture out to 
haul in the nets. Such a period, when, owing to the power of the ele- 
ments, fishing is at a standstill, is made good use of by the seals, so that 
after such pauses torn nets and half-devoured fish are found in the 
fishing-grounds instead of nets full of fish. 
Such occurrences are exceedingly common during the season when 
the seals visit our coasts, and 110 one who has not seen the damage 
done to the fishing apparatus by the seals can have an adequate idea 
of the extent of this calamity, especially during last winter. Among 
the rest, a number of bow -nets for catching cod in the Neustadt Bay 
had been repeatedly torn to such a degree that it took weeks and a 
considerable outlay of money and labor to repair the damage. 
In the neighborhood of the Schlei, where there were hundreds of 
flounder nets, these were so badly injured by the seals that in a few 
weeks they had become useless. In the inner portion of the Eckern- 
forde Bay nets and bow-nets (a particularly large number of the latter) 
had been injured by the seals to such a degree that when they were taken 
ashore to be dried they had many holes large enough for a man to 
creep through. In some cases the fishermen were compelled to stop 
fishing, although there were plenty of fish and the prices were high, 
simply because the seals had destroyed their apparatus. The cod fish 
eries by means of bow-nets have a still greater attraction for the seals 
than the fisheries with stationary nets, because in the meshes of the 
latter the fish hang quietly while they sport about freely in the bow- 
nets, and thereby attract the attention of their enemies. 
Frequently seals will attack bow-nets filled with fish from the outside 
by tearing the sides and catching and devouring the fish which try to 
escape through the openings. But they also know how to find their 
way through the neck of the bow-net by advancing from one chamber 
to the other until they reach the tish in the last chamber. But as the 
last chamber of the bow-net has a narrower e n trance than the first, it 
sometimes happens that the robber is caught and killed by the fisher- 
men. On the whole, however, such cases are rare, because the bow-nets 
do not possess the necessary power of resistance required to hold the 
seals, which are armed with very sharp teeth. 
It is not easy to answer the question as to how the evil can best be 
remedied, for even the use of poisoned fish as bait (apart from the 
danger connected with this method) would not be of any use, because 
the seals are very choice in the selection of their food, and would only 
fake to the dead bait if there was absolutely no chance to get fresh fish, 
