number of fishing boats was limited to 30. There were eight in Oshamambe and Ueu, twelve 
in Kunmuri, Nombetsu, Etomo and Nodaoi, six in Abuta, and one in Kayabe. Since the Meiji 
Restoration the business has been freed from government control and the price for the prod- 
ucte has decieased s:reatly." 
The technique of swinging a vox's tail (Frontispiece), mentioned in both these 
accounts, stimulates the imagination but ie inexplicable today. It is often referred to 
in other contemporary accounte of Ainu hunting but is never fully explained, The practice 
is mentioned so frequently that it must have some foundation in truth, but what hypnotic 
or other effect it had on the eseale can only be conjectured nowe 
This aboriginal hunting was hardly sufficient to make any impression on the large 
herds of seals traveling past the Hokimido coast in those days. Wor did the Japanese 
fishermen farther south off the Honshu coast, where seals must have been equally abundant, 
pay much attention to then. Not infrequently, the animale were caught in tuna nets, but 
the fishermen regarded them only as a nuisance and threw them away. Not wtil late in the 
19th century did they become aware of the seals’ value, when it was demonstrated to them 
by the example of the forsign pelagic sealers. 
JAPANESE SEALING FROM 1890 TO 1910 
The Japanese did not start sealing actively until the American and Canadian 
sealere who set them the example had skimmed the cream. Once started, however, they soon 
surpassed their teachers and became the most notorious and efficient poachers ever known. 
The first foreign veseel to hunt in Japanese waters was the American schooner 
Cygnet, which brought a valuable cargo of sea otter hides from the Kurils into the newly 
opened port of Hakodate in 1872. Word of her find spread quickly, and within the next few 
years a dozen vessels, most of them owned and operated by adventuresome foreign residents 
of Japan, ventured into these dangerous watere to ehare in the quick profita. 8/ So thor~- 
ough and unrelenting was their exploitation of the Kuril sea otters that the stock declined 
very rapidly, and yearly it became more and more difficult to make a profit on a voyage. 
30 the vessels made occasional forays on the not too distant fur seal rookeries on Robben 
and the Commander Islands. This was risky business, for these rookeries were protected by 
the Russians, who seized many over-daring schooners and imprisoned their crews. Then in 
1879 or 1880 9/ one of the otter huntere discovered a seal rookery in the central Kurils. 
The news spread quickly among the hunters, and within the next few yeare the three small 
colonies, on Mushir, Srednoi, and Raikoke islands respectively, were wiped out, practically 
before news of their existence reached the Japanese Government, which had received the 
Kurils from Russia in exchange for southern Sakhalin in 1875. 
The Japanese Government did make a belated and haif-hearted attempt to preserve 
these rookeries, though it is doubtful that the government authorities at the time recog- 
nized any difference between the sea otter and the fur seal. Three sets of regulations 
were promulgated, two by the imperial government in 1884 and 1886 and the third by the 
Hokkaido local government in 1688 (Bibl 14,15,16). The firet prohibited hunting seals and 
sea. otters in Hokkaido (which included the Eurils) except under license by the Bureau of 
Fisheries of the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce. The second required all licensed 
hunters to produce their permits on demand, to announce their arrival in Hokkaido to the 
loca] authoritie , and to have all their raw skins stamped by the authorities before sell- 
ing, and prohibited the entry of skins from American and Russian waters unless accompanied 
by a certificate issued by the governments of those countries. The third established an 
open season from 15 April to 31 October, divided the Kurils into three areas with each to 
8/ For the most authoritative account of the rise and fall of the sea otter hunting in 
the Kurils, see He. J. Snow, In Forbidden Seas, London, 1910. 
g/ Cf Snow, idem, and Stejneger, L., The Asiatic Fur Seal Islands and Fur Seal Industry, 
Washington, 1898. The exact dates are uncertain. The otter and seal hunters were of 
necessity a close-mouthed, gecretive breed and kept their information to thenselvos. 
16 
