272 
IN FORBIDDEN SEAS 
of Alaska in 1768. Thence the north-west coast of 
America was followed down to British Columbia. 
Along all these coasts the sea-otter abounded, and 
tens of thousands of skins were captured, traded for, 
or obtained by other means from the natives of those 
regions. 
At that time, it is evident, the sea-otter ranged 
from the neighbourhood of the Santa Barbara 
Islands, California, along the coasts of Oregon, 
Washington, British Columbia, Alaska (south of the 
Bering Sea), the Aleutian Islands, across to the 
Commander Islands and over to the coast of Kam¬ 
chatka, in latitude 56° north, thence south-westerly 
down the shores of the peninsula and along the Kuril 
Islands as far as Yezo, a distance of about 5,000 miles, 
with nowhere a bigger gap than 180 miles, which 
occurs between Attoo and Copper Islands. 
The fur of the sea-otter being much in demand, 
the animal was hunted so relentlessly and indiscrimi¬ 
nately that in many districts it was completely wiped 
out. This was the case first of all on the Kam¬ 
chatkan coast; then, as new haunts were discovered, 
they in turn suffered the same fate, until only the 
most inaccessible places remained where the sea- 
otter could defy his human enemies. The diffi¬ 
culties of hunting even these places were gradu¬ 
ally overcome, and the otters resorting to them so 
thinned out that at the present time not more than 
about 200 are taken in a year’s catch from all the 
hunting-grounds encircling the North Pacific Ocean 
from Japan to British Columbia, with the single 
exception of Copper Island, where they are closety 
preserved and jealously guarded, a catch of about 
200 only being allowed in a season. 
