EXHIBIT F.

Extracts from “Fur-seal Arbitration: Appendix to the case of the United States before the tribunal of arbitration to convene at Paris under the provisions of the treaty between the United States of America and Great Britain, concluded February 29, 1892.Vol. II, 1892.

[Extract from deposition of Abial P. Loud, special assistant treasury agent on Pribilof Islands.]

management and pelagic sealing.

* * * * * * *

I examined the seal skins she had on board, and about 80 per cent were skins of females. In 1888 or 1889 I examined something like 5,000 skins at Unalaska which had been taken from schooners engaged in pelagic sealing in Bering Sea, and at least 80 to 85 per cent were skins of females.

* * * * * * *

Abial P. Loud.

[seal.]
Chas. L. Hughes, Notary Public.

[Deposition of Thomas F. Morgan, agent of the lessees on the Pribilof Islands, and of the lessees on the Commander Islands.]

habits, management, and pelagic sealing.

District of Columbia, City of Washington, ss:

Thomas F. Morgan, being duly sworn, says: I am 44 years of age, and reside in the town of Groton, Conn. In 1868 I shipped as second mate of the bark Peru, owned by the firm of Williams & Haven, of the city of New London, Conn., which vessel was commanded by my father, Capt. Ebenezer Morgan, and sailed on that bark from Honolulu about the 27th day of February, 1868, for the purpose of catching seals on the islands in Bering Sea, Williams & Haven having for many years been engaged in seal fisheries, and being; so far as I know, the largest firm in the United States engaged in that business. We sailed to the port of Sitka and there applied to the commander, Gen. Jefferson C. Davis, for permission to land the cargo of the bark on the Pribilof Islands, and take seals on those islands. At the end of the season I remained on the island of St. Paul, one of the said Pribilof Islands, until August, [Page 124] 1869, as a representative of Williams & Haven’s interests in and about the said island. In the last-mentioned year I returned to this country, and at the request of the Alaska Commercial Company, of which Williams & Haven were stockholders, I was employed in the year 1874 to return to the Pribilof Islands as a representative of the said Alaska Commercial Company.

In pursuance of such request I returned to the islands as agent of said last mentioned company in charge of the island of St. George, which, with the islands of St. Paul, Otter, and Walrus, constitute the group known as the Pribilof Islands, I arrived at said island some time in May, 1874; took up my residence there, and remained in my capacity of agent in and about that island during each sealing season thereafter until the year 1887. At the expiration of the sealing season of 1887 I returned to the United States, and in 1891 was engaged by the Russian Sealskin Company, of St. Petersburg, as chief agent of that company, to proceed to the islands of Komandorski, consisting of Copper and Bering islands, commonly called the Commander Islands, which said company had a lease of the said Commander Islands as well as of the island of Tuleni or Robben, in the Okhotsk Sea, to kill seals and other fur-bearing animals on those islands on the payment of a royalty to the Russian Government. During the years above mentioned I have superintended the killing of, on the average, 18,000 seals a year, and in the last year of my employment by the Russian Sealskin Company I killed or superintended the killing of 30,000 seals. The skinning, curing of skins, packing of skins, and shipping of the skins from the islands of all the seals the killing of which I superintended has been under my immediate supervision, and a considerable part of the work thereof has been done by me personally.

That during my employment on said Pribilof Islands I carefully studied the habits of the fur seal and the statements hereafter made as to the habits of said animals are based on my own observation, and also from the fact that these statements have been corroborated by natives and residents on said islands whom I know to be familiar with every phase of seal life.

The Alaska fur seal breeds, I am thoroughly convinced, only upon the Pribilof Islands; that I have been on the Alaska coast and also along the Aleutian Islands; that at no point have I ever observed seals to haul out on land except at the Pribilof Islands, nor have I been able to obtain any authentic information which causes me to believe such is the case.

The Alaska fur seal is migratory, leaving the Pribilof Islands in the early winter, going southward into the Pacific and returning again in May, June, and July to said islands. I have observed certain bull seals return year after year to the same place on the rookeries, and I have been informed by natives that have lived on the islands that this is a well-known fact and has been observed by them so often that they stated it as an absolute fact.

I believe that the cause the seals chose these islands for their home is because of the isolation of these Pribilof Islands and because the climatic condition of said Pribilof Islands is particularly favorable to seal life. During the time the seals are upon land the weather is damp and cool, the islands being almost continually enveloped in fogs, the average temperature being about 41° F. during the summer.

The pup seals are born on the breeding rookeries on St. Paul and St. George islands during the months of June and July. When first born a pup can only live upon land, is not amphibious, and is unable to swim. If it is washed off into the sea by the surf it is drowned, as I have often seen. If a pup was born in the water it could not possibly live, and I have never heard of such a case. A further fact in this connection is that the females never come to the islands accompanied by a pup. After birth a pup at once begins to suckle its mother, who leaves its offspring only to go into the water for food, which I believe, from my observation, consists mainly of fish, squids, and crustaceans. In her search for food the female, in my opinion, goes 40 miles or even farther from the islands. The pup does not appear to recognize its mother, attempting to draw milk from any cow it comes in contact with; but a mother will at once recognize her own pup and will allow no other to nurse her. This I know from often observing a cow fight off other pups who approached her and search out her own pup from among them, which I think she recognizes by its smell and its cry.

When the pups are about 6 or 8 weeks old they begin to herd together in groups called “pods;” these by degrees work down toward the shore, and after several trials and failures at last find the use of their flippers and learn to swim; from this time, the 1st of August or thereabouts, the pup goes into the water at intervals, but remains most of the time on the rookeries until about November, the time which the pup spends in the water depending a great deal on the weather. Toward the first or middle of November the pups leave the islands; they instinctively turn southward toward the Aleutian Islands.

[Page 125]

The time of their departure depends a good deal on the state of the weather; if the winter is open, they may be found much later upon the islands, and if particularly warm seals may be found during the whole winter upon and about the islands. Probably, too, they are induced to leave the islands in pursuit of food. In my opinion if the islands were a little warmer in winter and not surrounded by ice, the seals would remain there the year round, as they evidently consider the Pribilof group their home.

From the islands the pup, with his fellows, goes southward, passing through the passes between the Aleutian Islands, and holds its course still south till lost sight of in the ocean. From this time until the herd reappears off the California coast their course is a matter of belief; but from information of sea captains of coasting vessels who have sailed during the winter, seals during December and the first part of January are found heading southeastwardly toward the Californian coast. In January and February they begin to appear along that coast; then turning northward they proceed along the coast, reaching Vancouver Island about March, the southern Alaska coast in April and May, and in June the herd reenters Bering Sea and proceeds again to their island home. It is impossible to state the course or exact time of migration with complete accuracy, but this course here designated I believe to be approximately correct.

The pups which left the island the year before have now become “yearlings,” the males and females herding together indiscriminately and not coming on shore until some time in August or September; they also leave the islands a little earlier than the first year and make the same course of migration as before. On their second return to the island as “two-year-olds” the sexes separate, the females going on the breeding rookeries, where they are fertilized by the bulls, and the males hauling up with the nonbreeding males, called “bachelors,” on the so-called “hauling grounds.” The “two-year-olds” again migrate southward over the same course as formerly. On their return to the islands the female goes again to the breeding rookeries and there brings forth her first pup. From this time forward she increases the seal herd by one pup annually, and the male of the same age is on the hauling grounds and is now considered of a tillable age.

The fourth and fifth migrations are practically the same as the third. After the fifth or sixth migration the male seal, now called a bull, returns to the islands about the 1st of May, and hauls up on the breeding rookeries, provided he is able to maintain himself there, which takes many bloody conflicts. There he gathers about him as many females as he is able. From the time of his landing until the close of the rutting season, or about the 1st of August, he remains continuously on the breeding grounds, never eating, and sleeping very little, if at all. About August 1 he again takes to the water, after having fertilized all the cows in his harem, very lean and lank, and his harem becomes disorganized, the pups gathering into pods, the females going and coming from the water, and the bachelors mingling with the cows and pups.

The bachelors while on the islands, in my opinion, feed very little, and practically it is only the female seals which feed while located on the islands. The speed of a seal when swimming is very great, covering, I should say, from 10 to 15 miles an hour. Therefore a female can easily go to the feeding grounds and return to the islands in a day; and that, so far as I am able to ascertain, the foregoing facts are practically corroborated by all those who have had the opportunity to study or observe seal life on the Pribilof Islands and in Bering Sea.

On my first arrival in the Pribilof Islands, in 1868, several other vessels, representatives of different interests, were there for the purpose of killing seals; and the natives of these islands, called Aleuts, were nearly all employed by one or other of the vessels in the business of killing seals. I noticed that the natives always remonstrated whenever any female was killed, and stated that that was forbidden, and I am informed that it always had been forbidden by the Russian Government. All the seals killed by me or under my superintendence on the islands have been male seals, except in the case of accident. My knowledge of the catch of 1868 enables me to state that the destruction of seals from all sources in that year was about 240,000. This is the maximum figure. Despite the lowering of the standard weight of skins, care was taken annually on St. George that the residue of available male breeders was sufficient for the needs of the rookeries, and instructions to that effect were given to the assistants by the superintendent of the Alaska Commercial Company. In this we were aided by the inaccessible character of some of the hauling grounds.

From the year 1874 till 1885 we were able to get from St. George and St. Paul islands annually 100,000 male seals within the period known as the sealing season of six weeks, from the 10th of June to the 1st of August, and still leave a large percentage [Page 126] of marketable seals. In 1885, and in every year thereafter until I left, in 1887, there was a marked decrease in the number of marketable skins that could be obtained in each year during the sealing season. We were able down to the last year (1887) to get our total catch of 100,000 seals, but in order to get that number we had to take what in previous years we would have rejected, namely, undersized skins, i. e., the skins of young seals. Prior to 1887 we had endeavored to take no skins weighing less than 8 pounds, but in order to make up our quota in the last-mentioned year we had to take skins weighing as little as 6½ pounds to the number of several thousand.

In the years 1885, 1886, and 1887 my attention was attracted not only to a diminution in the number of killable seals appearing on the island, but to a decrease in the females as well. Up to the year 1884 the breeding space in the rookeries had increased, and from that year down to 1887, when I left the island, the acreage covered by the rookeries which were occupied by seals constantly diminished. Naturally the cause of this diminution was a matter of interest and inquiry. It was not evident that it was from causes incident to the taking of seals upon the island. The greatest care was exercised in the driving. Under precisely similar conditions the herd had increased in former years. The number of skins originally apportioned to St. George Island were reduced at an early date, and only increased in proportion to the rookeries’ expansion. No disturbance of the rookeries was permitted, even the presence of dogs and use of firearms being prohibited during the presence of the seals; but facts came under my observation that soon led me to what I believe to be the true cause of destruction—for instance, during the period of my residence on St. George Island down to the year 1884 there were always a number of dead pups, the number of which I can not give exactly, as it varied from year to year and was dependent upon accidents or the destructiveness of storms. Young seals do not know how to swim from birth, nor do they learn how for six weeks or two months after birth, and therefore are at the mercy of the waves during stormy weather. But from the year 1884 down to the period when I left St. George Island there was a marked increase in the number of dead pup seals, amounting, perhaps, to a trebling of the numbers observed in former years, so that I would estimate the number of dead pups in the year 1887 at about five or seven thousand as a maximum.

I also noticed during my last two or three years, among the number of dead pups, an increase of at least 70 per cent of those which were emaciated and poor, and in my judgment they died from want of nourishment, their mothers having been killed while away from the island feeding, because it is a fact that pups drowned or killed by accidents were almost invariably fat. Learning further, through the London sales, of the increase in the pelagic sealing, it became my firm conviction that the constant increase in the number of dead pups and the decrease in the number of marketable seals and breeding females found on the islands during the years 1885, 1886, and 1887 were caused by the destruction of female seals in the open sea, either before or after giving birth to the pups. The mother seals go to feeding grounds distant from the islands, and I can only account for the number of starved pups by supposing that their mothers are killed while feeding.

As I understand the fact to be, most of the seals killed in the open sea are females. My reasons for this conclusion are (1) that from my knowledge of the seal I know that the females when heavy with young, as they are during the early part of the season when on their way to the rookeries, where they are delivered during the months of June and July, are much heavier in the water and much less able to escape, because they are capable of remaining under water to escape for a very much less period of time than when they are not heavy with young, or than the male seal would be; and (2) because I have personally inspected skins taken upon the three schooners Onward, Caroline, and Thornton, which skins, taken in Bering Sea, were landed in Unalaska, and were then personally inspected by me in the month of May, 1887. The total number of skins so examined by me was about 2,000, and of that number at least 80 per cent were the skins of females. I have also examined the skins taken by the United States revenue cutter Rush from one of the North Pacific islands, where they had been deposited by what is known as a poaching schooner, and taken to Unalaska, which numbered about 400 skins, and of that 400 skins at least 80 per cent were the skins of female seals. I have also examined the skins seized from the James Hamilton Lewis in the year 1891 by the Russian gunboat Aleute, numbering 416, of which at least 90 per cent were the skins of female seals, and from my long observation of seals and seal skins I am able to tell the difference between the skin of a male and the skin of a female seal.

From my knowledge of the aquatic habits of the seal and the difficulty of accurate shooting when the object is in the water, I am of the opinion that a large number of seals are also killed by vessels engaged in the business of taking seals in the open seas which are not caught. I am unable to form any estimate of the number of seals shot or speared from vessels, which are lost, but in the last two or three years, of my [Page 127] residence at St. George Island in taking 15,000 seals I found approximately 3 pounds of lead, in the form of slugs, bullets, and buckshot, which I personally took from the bodies of male seals, some of which were so badly wounded that they would have died; and I have personally examined the log of the schooner Angel Dollie, in which it was stated that the hunters from that vessel got about one seal out of every ten seals shot at; also that on one occasion they fired 250 rounds and got 20 seals; on another occasion, 100 cartridges and got 6 seals, and which log also stated that the captain personally shot and killed 7 seals of which he got only 1.

Deponent further says that he thinks that the decrease in the number of seals found in the rookeries and the increase in the number of dead pups are caused directly by the open-sea sealing, commonly called poaching, and that the prohibition of such poaching is necessary to the preservation of the herds, and that from what he has himself seen he thinks if such poaching be not prohibited the herds will be practically exterminated within five years. One cause of destruction is raiding, which has been done upon the shores of the islands. A half dozen such raids are known to me personally; but while it is not possible for me to state with certainty the skins actually secured by such raids, I believe that, although such raiding is detrimental, its injurious effect, as compared with the disastrous results of pelagic sealing, is insignificant.

Thomas F. Morgan.

[seal.]
Sevellon A. Brown,
Notary Public in and for the District of Columbia, U. S. A.

[Deposition of William H. Williams, Treasury agent in charge of the Pribilof Islands.]

management—pelagic sealing.

William H. Williams, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I reside at Wellington, Ohio, and am 55 years of age; that I am the United States Treasury agent in charge of the Seal Islands in Bering Sea; that in pursuance of Department instructions to me of May 27, 1891, I made a careful examination during the sealing season of the habits, numbers, and conditions of the seals and seal rookeries with a view of reporting to the Department, from observation and such knowledge on the subject as I might obtain, whether or not, in my opinion, the seals are diminishing on the Pribilof Islands, and if so, the causes therefor; that as a result of such investigation I found, from the statements made to me by the natives on said islands, Government agents, employees of the lessees, some of whom had been on said islands for many years, that a decrease in number of seals had been gradually going on since 1885, and that in the last three years the decrease had been very rapid.

A careful and frequent examination of the hauling grounds and breeding rookeries by myself and assistant agents during the months of June, July, and August showed that the seals had greatly diminished in number, and we found large vacant spaces on all the rookeries which in former years, during these months, had been covered by thousands of seals; that prior to 1888 the lessees had been able to take 100,000 skins from male seals, but I am clearly of the opinion that not more than one-third of that number of merchantable skins could have been taken during the year 1891. Furthermore, I made careful inquiry of the people on the islands, both native and white, and of those who were or had been employed as masters or mates on sealing vessels, and others interested one way or another in the capture of fur-seals for food or for profit, and failed to find any of them but who admitted that the number of seals in the Bering Sea was much less now than a few years since, and nearly all of them gave it as their opinion that the decrease in number was due to pelagic hunting, or, as they more frequently expressed it, the killing of females in the water. It was freely admitted by the pelagic hunters with whom I conversed that but a very small per cent of their catch was males, and I found their statements in this respect verified by the dealers who bought or handled the skins and placed them on the market. They are known to the trade as the “Northwest coast catch,” and I am credibly informed that a portion of the skin on the belly of the female heavy with pup or giving suck to her young is worthless, and that this is one of the chief causes why they are sold so much less than prime skins in the London market. They also further stated that the two most profitable periods for them to catch seal was in the spring of the year, when the females were heavy with pup and frequently found asleep on the water, and in the summer, after the mother seal had given birth to her young and gone out into the sea to feed, at which time she was easily approached.

[Page 128]

The investigation further disclosed the fact that of the large number of seals killed by pelagic hunters only a portion of them are secured, and while all admitted that some were lost they differed considerably as to the number. In one instance a hunter claimed that he secured nearly all that he killed, and in another instance it was said that only one out of fifteen was secured. A great majority of the hunters, when closely questioned, admitted the losing of a large proportion shot at, and I am of the opinion that the wide difference in their statement was due to two facts: First, some hunters are more skilful than others; and, second, some base their estimate on what they know to have been actually killed, while others estimate from the number shot at; that the mother seals, while rearing their young on the Pribilof Islands during the months of July, August, September, and October of each year, leave the islands and go out to sea to feed, returning at intervals to give nourishment to their young. That they traveled long distances in pursuit of food at these times is a wellknown fact and substantiated by the statements of reputable persons who have been on sealing vessels and seen them killed 200 miles or more from the islands, and who say they have seen the decks of vessels slippery with milk flowing from the carcasses of the dead females.

That thousands of the female seals were captured by the pelagic hunters in Bering Sea during the season of 1891, the most of which had to be secured quite a distance from the rookeries, owing to the presence of armed vessels patrolling the sea for miles around the islands, and that the slaughter of the seals was mostly of females, was confirmed by the thousands of dead pups lying on the rookeries starved to death by the destruction of their mothers.

It is a fact that none but male seals are ever driven and killed on the islands, and great care is taken to preserve a sufficient number each year to supply the breeding rookeries.

During the season of 1891 nearly every mature female coming upon the rookeries gave birth to a young seal, and there was great abundance of males of sufficient age to again go upon the breeding grounds that year, as was shown by the inability of large numbers of them to secure more, than one to five cows each, while quite a number could secure none at all. My investigation confirms what has been so often said by others who have reported upon this subject, and that is that the Pribilof Islands are the greatest breeding grounds of the fur seals, and that they can be reared in great numbers on said islands, and at the same time, under wise and judicious restrictions, a certain number of male seals can be killed from year to year without injury to the breeding herds, and their skins disposed of for commercial purposes, thereby building up and perpetuating this great industry indefinitely, and thus adding to the wealth, happiness, and comfort of the civilized world; while on the other hand, if the pelagic hunting of this animal is to continue, and the barbarous practice of killing the mother seal with her unborn young, or when she is rearing it, is to go on, it will be but a very short time before the fur seal will practically become extinct, and this valuable industry will pass out of existence.

Wm. H. Williams.

[seal.]
Chas. L. Hughes,
Notary Public.

[Deposition of Kerriek Artomanoff, native chief, resident of St. Paul Island.]

pelagic sealing—management.

Alaska, U. S. A., St. Paul Island, Pribilof Group, ss:

Kerriek Artomanoff, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I am a native Aleut, and reside on St. Paul Island, Pribilof Group, Alaska; I was born at Northeast Point, on St. Paul Island, and am 67 years of age. I have worked on the sealing grounds for the last fifty years, and am well acquainted with the methods adopted by the Russian and American Governments in taking of fur-seal skins and in protecting and preserving the herds on the island. In 1870, when the Alaska Commercial Company obtained the lease of the islands, I was made chief, and held the position for seventeen years.

It was my duty as chief to take charge of and conduct the drives with my people from the hauling to the killing grounds. The methods used by the Alaska Commercial Company and the American Government for the care and preservation of the seals were much better than those used by the Russian Government. In old Russian times [Page 129] we used to drive seals from Northeast Point to the village, a distance of nearly 13 miles, and we used to drive 5 or 6 miles from other hauling grounds; but when the Americans got the islands they soon after shortened all the drives to less than 3 miles.

From 1870 to 1884 the seals were swarming on the hauling grounds and the rookeries, and for many years they spread out more and more. All of a sudden, in 1884, we noticed there was not so many seals, and they have been decreasing very rapidly ever since. My people wondered why this was so, and no one could tell why, until we learned that hunters in schooners were shooting and destroying them in the sea. Then we knew what the trouble was, for we knew the seals they killed and destroyed must be cows, for most all the males remain on or near the islands until they go away in the fall or fore part of the winter. We also noticed dead pups on the rookeries, that had been starved to death. These dead pups have increased from year to year since 1887, and in 1891 the rookeries were covered with dead pups. In my sixty-seven years’ residence on the island I never before saw anything like it. None of our people have ever known of any sickness among the pups or seals, and have never seen any dead pups on the rookeries, except a few killed by the old bulls when fighting, or by drowning when the surf washed them off. If they had not killed the seals in the sea there would be as many on the rookeries as there was ten years ago. There was not more than one-fourth as many seals in 1891 as there was in 1880.

The fur seal goes away from the island in the fall or winter, and he returns in May or June, and I believe he will haul up in the same place each year, for I particularly noticed some that I could tell that hauled up in the same place for a number of years; and when we make drives those we do not kill but let go into the water are all back where we took them from in a few hours. The pups are born between the middle of June and the middle of July, and can not swim until they are six or seven weeks old; and if born in the water they would die. I have seen the surf wash some of the young pups into the sea, and they drowned in a very short time. In four or five days after it is born the mother seal leaves her pup and goes away to the sea to feed, and when the pup is two or three weeks old the mother often stays away for five or six days at a time. The mother seals know their own pups by smelling them, and no seal will allow any but her own pup to suck her. When the pups grow to be six or eight weeks old they form in “pods” and work down to the shore, and they try the water at the edge until they learn to swim. They will remain on the island until November, and if not too cold will stay till December. I have seen them swimming around the island late in January. All the seals, when they leave the island, go off south, but I think they would stay around here all winter if the weather was not so cold.

When they come back to the islands they come from the south, and I think they come from the North Pacific Ocean over the same track that they went. The females go upon the rookeries as soon as they arrive here, but the yearlings do not come on land till the last of July, and yearling males and females herd together. I think they stay in the water most of the time the first year, but after that they come regularly to the hauling grounds and rookeries, but do not come as early in the season as they do after they are two years old. Male seals from two to six years old do not go on the breeding rookeries, but haul out by themselves. The female seal gives birth to but one pup every year, and she has her first pup when she is three years old. The male seal establishes himself on the breeding rookery by May or June when he is seven or eight years old, and he fights for his cows and does not leave the place he has selected until August or September. Our people like the meat of the seal, and we eat no other meat so long as we can get it.

The pup seals are our chicken meat, and we used to be allowed to kill 3,000 or 4,000 male pups every year in November; but the Government agent forbade us to kill any in 1891, and said we should not be allowed to kill any more, and he gave us other meat in place of “pup” meat; but we do not like any other meat as well as pup-seal meat. We understand the danger there is in the seals being all killed off and that we will have no way of earning our living. There is not one of us but what believes if they had not killed them off by shooting them in the water there would be as many seals on the island now as there was in 1880, and we could go on forever taking 100,000 seals on the two islands; but if they get less as fast as they have in the last five or six years there will be none left in a little while.

Kerrick Artomanoff.

Wm. H. Williams,
Treasury Agent in Charge of Seal Islands.
[Page 130]

[Deposition of John Fratis, resident on St. Paul Island and employee of lessees.]

management and habits.

Alaska, U. S. A., St. Paul Island, Pribilof Group, ss:

John Fratis, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I am 47 years of age, and was born on the Ladrone Islands. I can speak the English, Russian, and Spanish languages, and I understand the Aleut as it is spoken by the natives of St. Paul Island, Alaska.

I came to St. Paul Island in 1869, and married a native woman and became one of the people; was made a native sealer, and have resided here ever since.

From 1859 to 1869 I was employed on whaling vessels working in Bering and Okhotsk seas and the Arctic Ocean. I have been along the coast of Bering and Okhotsk seas, and along the coast of Alaska in the North Pacific Ocean from Sitka to Unalaska, and I never saw or heard tell of any place in American waters in that whole region where the Alaskan fur seals haul out on land or breed, excepting on the seal islands of Bering Sea known as the Pribilof Islands.

From the time I settled here, in 1869, until 1882 or 1883 there was no trouble at all in taking 85,000 seals on St. Paul Island between June 1 and July 30, and we often got that number by July 20.

In those days we used to get plenty of seals on the Zoltoi sands near the Reef rookery, and now there are none there. I have worked on the sealing grounds at everything there is to do, from driving to clubbing, and preparing the skins for shipment.

When Mr. Webster had charge of the killing at Northeast Point, where he used to kill from 25,000 to 35,000 seals in a season, I generally did the cooking there, and I cooked seal meat every day, and we all ate it, and our people live on seal meat, yet I never saw a sick or a diseased seal or a carcass that was unfit for food.

I have driven seals from all the rookeries and under the directions of several chiefs, and I know the orders were always very strict about the care we must take of the seals on the road. No drives were made in warm weather; the seals were not hurried, but every once in a while they were allowed to stop and rest. The men who did the driving were relieved from time to time, so that no man should get too cold on the drive, and when the sun came out warm the drive was always abandoned and the seals allowed to go into the sea. I never saw the seals overdriven or overheated, nor have I ever seen a seal die on the drive, except one or two occasionally smothered.

The drivers carry their knives along, and when a seal dies they skin him, and the skin is brought to the salt-house and counted in with the others.

An overheated seal would not be worth skinning, and for that reason the company agent is particular that the seals are not overheated. I have clubbed seals, too, and at present am a regular clubber.

We know a cow seal on sight, and when we find one on the killing grounds we take care she is not injured. Very few cows get into the drives before the middle of August, and then we are only driving and killing a few hundred a week for food.

All cows killed on the seal islands are killed accidentally, and it occurs so seldom that I do not think there has been to exceed 100 since I came to the island, in 1869. So carefully has this been guarded that when we used to be allowed to kill pup seals in November we had to examine and separate the sexes and kill none but males.

The seals came to the islands in spring, and they came from the southward.

The first bulls arrive late in April or very early in May, and they are coming along till June. The bachelors come in May, the older ones first, and they continue coming till July, when the younger ones arrive. The cows appear about the 10th of June, and they are all on the rookeries about the middle of July.

The pups are born soon after the arrival of the cows, and they are helpless and can not swim, and they would drown if put into water. The pups have no sustenance except what the cows furnish, and no cow suckles any pup but her own. The pups would suck any cow if the cow would let them.

After the pup is a few days old the cow goes into the sea to feed, and at first she will only stay away for a few hours, but as the pup grows stronger she will stay away more and more, until she will sometimes be away for a week.

I do not think the bachelors go to feed from the time they haul out until they leave the islands in November, for I have observed the males killed in May are fat and their stomachs full of fish, mostly codfish, while the males killed in July and afterwards are poorer and poorer, and their stomachs are empty. I know the bulls do not eat during their four months’ stay on the islands.

In August the families, or harems, break mp, and the cows scatter all over the rookeries, and the bulls begin to go away late in August and all through September, [Page 131] so that very few are left in October. The cows and bachelors begin to leave in October and November, but their going is regulated somewhat by the weather.

Cold, stormy weather, with sudden heavy frost, will drive them off sooner, so that the islands will be deserted by December 15, while warm weather will keep plenty of bachelors here until late in January, when I have known them to be driven and killed for food. When the seals leave the island they go southward and through the passes of the Aleutian Islands into the Pacific Ocean.

It was in 1884 that I first noticed a decrease in the seals, and it has been a steady and a very rapid decrease ever since 1886, so that at present there is not one-quarter as many seals on the island as there was every year from 1869 to 1883.

I have known of one or two schooners operating in Bering Sea as early as 1877 or 1878, and they were on the rookeries occasionally during the past ten years; but they can not damage the seal herd much by raiding the rookeries, because they can not take many, even were they permitted to land, which they are not by any means.

The schooners increased every year from the time I first noticed them until in 1884 there was a fleet of 20 or 30, and then I began to see more and more dead pups on the rookeries, until in 1891 the fleet of sealing schooners numbered more than a hundred, and the rookeries were covered with dead pups.

It is my opinion that the cows are killed by the hunters when they go out in the sea to feed, and the pups are left to die, and do die on the island.

I never knew of a time when there were not plenty of bulls for all the cows, and I never saw a cow seal, except a 2-year-old, without a pup by her side in the proper season. I never heard tell of an impotent bull seal, nor do I believe there is such a thing, except the very old and feeble, or badly wounded ones. I have seen hundreds of idle vigorous bulls upon the rookeries and there were no cows for them. I saw many such bulls last year.

The pups do not learn to swim until they are six to eight weeks old, and after learning they seem to prefer to be on the land; and I think they would not leave the islands only for the cold weather, or it may be they follow the cows to sea after being weaned.

If the seals were let alone in the water we could manage them so as to again build up the rookeries. We are so familiar with their habits, and they are so accustomed to us, that there is no difficulty in managing them so as to make them increase. They are easy to handle, the little pups are not shy of us, and even when they are older in the fall they can be handled much easier than sheep. I can manage seals better than I can some of the sheep brought on the islands, and which I have been sent to catch.

John Fratis.

Wm. H. Williams,
Treasury Agent in charge of Seal Island.

[Deposition of Charles J. Goff, Treasury agent in charge of Pribilof Islands.]

probilof rookeries.

District of Columbia, City of Washington, ss:

Charles J. Goff, of Clarksburg, W. Va., being duly sworn, deposes and says: I am 45 years of age. During the years 1889 and 1890 I occupied the position of special Treasury agent in charge of the Pribilof Islands. I was located on St. Paul Island, only visiting St. George Island occasionally. About the 1st June, 1889, I arrived on St. Paul Island, and remained there until October 12, 1889, when I returned to San Francisco for the winter. Again went to the islands in 1890, arriving there about the last week in May, and remaining until August 12, 1890. Since that time I have never been on the islands. My principal observations as to seal life upon the islands were confined to St. Paul Island, as I only visited St. George Island occasionally.

During my first year on the islands the Alaska Commercial Company was the lessee thereof, and during my second year the North American Commercial Company. In 1889 I made careful observations of the rookeries on St. Paul Island, and marked out the areas covered by the breeding grounds; in 1890 I examined these [Page 132] lines made by me the former year and found a very great shrinkage in the spaces covered by breeding seals.

In 1889 it was quite difficult for the lessees to obtain their full quota of 100,000 skins; so difficult was it, in fact, that in order to turn off a sufficient number of four and five year old males from the hauling grounds for breeding purposes in the future the lessees were compelled to take about 50,000 skins of seals of one or two years of age. I at once reported this fact to the Secretary of the Treasury, and advised the taking of a less number of skins the following year. Pursuant to such report the Government fixed upon the number to be taken as 60,000, and further ordered that all killing of seals upon the islands should stop after the 20th day of July. I was further ordered that I should notify the natives upon the Aleutian Islands that all killing of seals while coming from or going to the seal islands was prohibited. These rules and regulations went into effect in 1890, and pursuant thereto I posted notices for the natives at various points along the Aleutian chain, and saw that the orders in relation to the time of killing and number allowed to be killed were executed upon the islands. As a result of the enforcement of these regulations the lessees were unable to take more then 21,238 seals of the killable age of from 1 to 5 years during the season of 1890, so great had been the decrease of seal life in one year, and it would have been impossible to obtain 60,000 skins, even if the time had been unrestricted.

The Table A appended to this affidavit shows how great had been the decrease on St. Paul Islands hauling grounds, bearing in mind the fact that the driving and killing was done by the same persons as in former years and was as diligently carried on, the weather being as favorable as in 1889 for seal driving. I believe that the sole cause of the decrease is pelagic sealing, which from reliable information I understand to have increased greatly since 1884 or 1885. Another fact I have gained from reliable sources is that the great majority of the seals taken in the open sea are pregnant females or females in milk. It is an unquestionable fact that the killing of these females destroys the pups they are carrying or nursing. The result is that this destruction of pups takes about equally from the male and female increase of the herd, and when so many male pups are killed in this manner, besides the 100,000 taken from the islands, it necessarily affects the number of killable seals. In 1889 this drain upon male seal life showed itself on the islands, and this, in my opinion, accounts for the necessity of the lessees taking so many young seals that year to fill out their quota.

As soon as the effects of pelagic sealing were noticed by me upon the islands I reported the same, and the Government at once took steps to limit the killing upon the islands, so that the rookeries might have an opportunity to increase their numbers to their former condition; but it will be impossible to repair the depletion if pelagic sealing continues. I have no doubt, as I reported, that the taking of 100,000 skins in 1889 affected the male life on the islands and cut into the reserve of male seals necessary to preserve annually for breeding purposes in the future; but this fact did not become evident until it was too late to repair the fault that year. Except for the numbers destroyed by pelagic sealing in the years previous to 1889 the hauling grounds would not have been so depleted, and the taking of 100,000 male seals would not have impaired the reserve for breeding purposes or diminished to any extent the seal life on the Pribilof Islands. Even in this diminished state of the rookeries in 1889 I carefully observed that in the majority of cases the four and five year old males were allowed to drop out of a “drive” before the bachelors have been driven any distance from the hauling grounds. These seals were let go for the sole purpose of supplying sufficient future breeders.

A few seals are injured by redriving (often conflicted with overdriving, and sometimes so called), but the number so injured is inconsiderable, and could have no appreciable effect upon seal life, though destroying the virility of the male. The decrease, caused by pelagic sealing, compelled whatever injurious redriving has taken place on the islands, as it was often necessary to drive every two or three days from the same hauling grounds, which caused many seals let go in a former “drive” to be driven over again before thoroughly rested. If a “drive” was made only once a week from a certain hauling ground, as had been the case before pelagic sealing grew to such enormous proportions and depleted the rookeries, there would be no damage at all resulting from redriving.

In my opinion pelagic sealing is the cause of redriving on the islands, the depletion of the rookeries, and promises to soon make the Alaska fur-seal herd a thing of the past. If it continued as it is to-day, even if killing on the islands was absolutely forbidden, the herd will in a few years be exterminated. I am, therefore, of the opinion that pelagic sealing should be absolutely prohibited both in Bering Sea and the North Pacific Ocean. If this is done and a few years are allowed the seal herd [Page 133] to recover from the enormous slaughter of the past seven years, the Pribilof Islands will produce their 100,000 skins as heretofore for an indefinite period.

* * * * * * *

Charles A. Goff.

Sevellon A. Brown, Notary Public.

[Deposition of Aggie Kushen, assistant priest on St. Paul Island, and employee of lessees.]

management, habits.

Alaska, U. S. A., St. Paul Island, Pribilof Group, ss:

Aggie Kushen, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I was born at Simshoe, Kurile Islands, and am 37 years of age. I came to St. Paul Island in 1867, and have resided here ever since. I can read and write in the Russian and Aleut languages, and am able to interpret the one into the other; and I understand the English language fairly well. At present, and for several years past, I am assistant priest in the Greek Catholic Church. My occupation on the island is that of a native sealer, and I have been such since 1870. I have a thorough knowledge of the taking of fur seals for skins in all its details as it has been done on St. Paul Island since 1870. From 1870 to about 1884 the seal rookeries were always filled out to their limits, and sometimes beyond them.

About 1885 a decrease was observed, and that decrease has become more marked every year from 1885 to the present time. I never saw many sealing schooners before 1884, but they have been coming more and more every year since, and I notice that as the schooners multiply in the sea the seals decrease on the rookeries. I do not mean to say that the seals were injured because a few were killed on the rookeries, when men from schooners landed on the islands in the night or when the fog was very thick, for the numbers killed in that way never amounted to much, as it is not often the raiders can land on a rookery and escape with their plunder. When, in 1886, we all saw the decrease of seals upon the hauling grounds and rookeries, we asked each other what was the cause of it, but when we learned that white men were shooting seals in the water with guns we knew what was the matter; we knew that if they killed seals in the water that they must be nearly all females that were going out to feed, for the males stay on the islands until they get ready to go away in the fall or winter. It was among the cows that we first noticed the decrease, and as we never kill the cows on the islands we knew that they must be killing them in the water. We noticed idle, vigorous bulls on the breeding rookeries because of the scarcity of cows, and I have noticed that the cows have decreased steadily every year since 1886, but more particularly so in 1888, 1889, 1890, and 1891.

There was a great number of dead pups upon the rookeries last year, whose mothers, I believe, were killed at sea by sealing schooners, and I do not expect to see many cows this year. I never saw a dead grown seal on the island during my twentyfive years’ residence here, except odd ones that had been killed in fighting for places on the rookeries.

I never heard any of the old men who have lived here for fifty years before my time speak of such a thing as sickness or death among the seals. We eat the flesh of the seal, and it constitutes the meat supply of the natives; and seals from two to five years old have been killed by them for food every week during their stay on the land ever since the islands were peopled, and no one has yet found a diseased seal, either young or old.

I have been told that there are persons who claim we are not careful in driving seals, and that we kill them regardless of sex. These statements are not true. I have taken my turn at driving seals from the hauling to the killing grounds every year since 1870, and I know the driving is very carefully done. When I first came here seals used to be driven from Halfway Point to the village, a distance of about 6 miles; and from Zapadnie to the village, a distance of nearly 5 miles. Wet, or very damp, cool weather was chosen for such drives, and we started the drive at about 6 o’clock at night, and driving all night reached the village at from 6 to 8 o’clock next morning.

Half a mile in one hour was about the rate of speed on such drives in favorable weather, and I do not know of any drives of over 2 miles where we ever went at a greater speed.

[Page 134]

All long drives were stopped in 1879 when the Alaska Commercial Company made a killing ground and built a salt house within 2 miles of Halfway Point, and made a killing ground within a mile of Zapadnie. Since these changes were made no seals have been driven on St. Paul Island over 2 miles to a killing ground.

The seals are never driven at a greater speed than 1 mile in three hours; and the men who do the driving have to relieve each other on the road, because they travel so slowly they get very cold.

In a very large drive a small seal may be smothered, but that does not injure the skin, which is taken and salted and counted to the lessees; and the greatest number I ever saw die on the drive was 20 out of a drive of about 9,000 seals, and the 20 skins were good and were accepted as “first class.” The bull seal arrives at the island early in May, and takes his place on the breeding rookery, and he stays there until August or September without food. About the middle of May the young males begin to haul out, but are driven off by the bulls, who would tear them to pieces if they went on the breeding rookeries. Consequently the bachelors haul out by themselves, and are easily surrounded and driven into the killing ground without disturbing the breeding rookery.

The cows begin to haul out in June, and take their places on the breeding rookeries beside the bulls, where the young pups are born in from one to three days after the arrival of the cows.

When the cow goes into the sea for food, her stay there becomes longer and longer as the season advances, until at times she will be away for three or four days at a time.

The pups when first born can not swim, and will drown if they are put into water.

I have seen many pups drowned when washed off the edge of the rookery by the surf. They do not go into the water until they are six or eight weeks old, and then they will keep in shallow water and close to the shore for several days more.

They seem to like to stay on land until late in the season. Every native knows a female seal at sight, and, as the law against killing a female is strict and so rigidly enforced, and as the clubbers are the most experienced and most careful men on the island, it is very seldom that any female seal is clubbed. Our people have great respect for law, and are always ready to obey any rules laid down by the proper authority, and they have been raised in the firm belief that it is wrong to kill a cow seal. No one knows better than the natives that our prosperity is in the protection of the seals. They are our food supply, and our earnings from taking the skins enable us to live comfortably. Should the company desire us to kill female seals, every native in the village would be interested in having the Government officer know it. The instructions we have always received from the company was to be careful in driving, and to never kill a female seal.

During the month of August the families break up and the seals scatter around, and some of the cows mingle with the young males and are driven along with them when we make a drive for food, and sometimes one or two are killed accidentally. It is so seldom that this occurs I do not think that there has been more than about 10 cows per year killed on St. Paul Island since 1870.

The skins taken from seals killed for food are salted and counted to the lessees on the quota of the following year, so that nothing may be wasted. When we were allowed to kill pups in November for food and clothing, we always picked out the males, because we were not allowed to kill female pups, and now we are not allowed to kill any pups at all. When the seals leave the island they go to the southward, and when they come back in the spring they come from that direction. The bulls begin to leave the island about the middle of August, and most of them are gone by the middle of September. The cows and bachelors leave in November, and the pups follow or go with the cows. When the weather is good, a number of seals will cling to the beach or remain in the water around the rookeries until December, and sometimes until late in January. I have noticed more and more dead pups on the rookeries every year since 1888, and in 1891 they were so close together in places I could not step among them without stepping on a dead pup. I saw many of them cut open and examined by the doctor (Dr. Ackerly) and their stomachs were empty. All of the dead pups were poor and thin and starved.

I believe they all died of starvation, because their mothers had been shot at sea when they went out to feed. I never saw a full fat pup or one who had a mother to feed him dead, except a few that were drowned in the surf. No cow will suckle any pup but her own, and I have often watched a cow driving pups from her until she found her own. She knows her pup by smelling it.

There are not one-fourth as many seals now as there were in 1882, and our people are very much alarmed to know what is to become of them after the seals are killed [Page 135] off. If the seals decrease as fast as they have during the past five or six years, there will be none left in a very short time for us to live upon.

Aggie Kushen.

Wm. H. Williams,
Treasury Agent in Charge of Seal Islands.

[Extracts from depositions of Anton Melovedoff and J. C. Redpath, residents on St. Paul Island.]

decrease of herd.

Territory of Alaska, U. S. A., The Island of St Paul:

Before me, F. H. Newcomb, a first lieutenant in the United States Revenue-Marine Service, and executive officer of the U. S. revenue steamer Rush, and authorized and empowered to take testimony and administer oaths, personally appeared Anton Melovedoff, who, being by me first duly sworn according to law, testified as follows, to wit:

* * * * * * *

Q. To what do you attribute the decrease in the number of seals on the rookeries?—A. To the great number of cows killed by poachers, and consequently less pups are born on the rookeries.

Q. How do you know that cows have been killed by poachers?—A. I have handled and seen a great number of skins captured by the revenue cutters from the poaching vessels, and there were very few male skins among them; also have seen among them a great number of unborn pups. Twice upon the rookeries I have seen cows killed and left there by the poachers.

Q. Why is it, in your opinion, that more female than male seals are killed by the poachers?—A. Because, first, in the passage of the seals to the islands in the early season the females travel in groups and the males scatter; secondly, after arriving at the islands the males remain on or about the hauling grounds, while the females, having their pups to nurse, go out into sea to obtain food.

Q. How do you tell the skin of a female from that of a male?—A. By the nipples and general appearance.

Q. Have you ever known the lessees to take female skins?—A. No. Any employee killing a female either intentionally or accidentally would be liable to a fine.

Q. Did you see any dead pups on the rookeries the past season?—A. Yes; I saw lots of them.

* * * * * * *

Anton Melovedoff.

Also J. C. Redpath, who, having been duly sworn by me, as hereinafter certified, testified as follows:

Q. State your age, place of residence, and occupation.—A. I am 47 years of age, and have been a resident of the seal islands for the past seventeen years; formerly local agent of the Alaska Commercial Company, now of the North American Commercial Company, and during that time have been engaged in the taking of seal.

Q. Have you noticed any perceptible difference in the number of seals on the rookeries from one year to another? If so, what changes have you observed?—A. Within the last four or five years I have observed a decided decrease in the number of seals on the rookeries.

Q. In what proportion have the seals decreased within the time mentioned?—A. As far as my judgment goes, I should say at least one-half.

Q. How do you account for it?—A. By the numbers, principally females, that are killed in the waters by marauders.

Q. How do you know that the marauders kill females principally?—A. I know that the females, after giving birth to their young on the rookeries, frequent the open sea in search of food, whereas the males frequent the hauling grounds of waters immediately around it. At various times I have seen skins which were seized by the cutters from the poachers, and they were substantially female skins.

Q. Have you noticed any dead pups on the rookeries this past season, and in what proportion to former years?—A. I have seen an unusual number of dead pups this year on the breeding grounds; I may say twice as many as formerly.

[Page 136]

Q. How do you account for it?—A. From the fact of their mothers having been killed by marauders. It is a well-known fact that the mothers suckle none but their own pups; consequently the motherless die from want of nourishment.

Q. What is the general condition of a healthy pup seal receiving constant attention from its mother?—A. I know him to be completely gorged with milk and his body to be enveloped in fat.

Q. What effect, in your opinion, does the increase in the number of poaching vessels in Bering Sea have upon seal life?—A. Since the number of sealing vessels has increased the number of seals coming to the islands has correspondingly decreased.

J. C. Redpath, Agent.

[Deposition of Anton Melovedoff, native Alaskan, and employee of lessees on St. Paul Island.]

[management—habits.]

St. Paul Island, Pribilof Group, Alaska, U. S. A., ss:

Anton Melovedoff, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I am 38 years of age, and I was born on Kadiak Island, Alaska. I came to St. Paul Island in 1864 the first time and in 1869 the second time. I have resided here since 1869, and I have been constantly employed among the Alaskan fur seals in all that time. I have had a large and varied experience in all the details of the business as it has been carried on on St. Paul Island, and I have done service in all the departments, from the work of a boy to that of first chief of the island. I can read and write the English, Russian, and Aleut languages and I can interpret them into one another. I have read a considerable amount of the controversies on the seal question since the seals began to decrease so rapidly on the rookeries, and I have observed the rookeries and their daily condition since I became first chief in 1884, which office I resigned in 1891.

In the Russian times, before 1868, the seals were always driven across the island of St. Paul from North East Point to the village salt house, a distance of 12½ miles; but when the Alaska Commercial Company leased the islands they stopped long driving and built salt houses near to the hauling grounds, so that by 1879 no seals were driven more than 2 miles.

Noone ever said in those days that seals were made impotent by driving, although long drives had been made for at least fifty years. I have never known or heard tell of a time when there was not bulls enough and to spare on the breeding rookeries. I never saw a cow of 3 years old or over in August without a pup by her side. The only cows on a breeding rookery without pups are the virgin cows who have come there for the first time. I never went on to a rookery in the breeding season when I could not have counted plenty of idle vigorous bulls who had no cows.

I have heard it said that the seals are slaughtered indiscriminately on the seal islands, and that the natives take no care of the seals. The contrary of this is true. Rules could hardly be made any more stringent than the rules laid down by the Government and company officers for the care and management of the seals, and no people could be more careful in obeying them in letter and spirit than what ours are.

The killing of females is a crime on St. Paul Island, and our church teaches that it is a sin to kill one, and our people know that the death of a cow seal means one pup less for meat in years to come. Never, since I came here in 1869, have I known of a cow to be killed unless by accident, and I think there has not been 10 cows killed out of every 85,000 seals killed every year from 1870 to 1889.

When I first went on a drive I remember how the chiefs talked to me about being careful of how I went on the hauling grounds; how I must not disturb the breeding rookeries, and that I must walk as slow as I could when driving, and stop and let the seals rest occasionally.

I believe the same instructions were given at all times by the chiefs to our people, and I think they have been generally very faithfully obeyed. The bulls and cows being on the breeding rookeries all through June and July, while the killing of the bachelors for skins is taking place, there is no reason why a cow should be driven or killed in the two months named, and it is a very rare case to see a cow on the killing grounds at this time and still rarer to have one killed.

After the killing season is ended and the breeding season is over, the cows do mix up with the bachelors on the hauling grounds, and they are often driven when we make a drive of seals to kill for food, and sometimes one or two are clubbed by accident. With this exception there are no cows or females ever killed on the seal islands.

I was first chief from 1884 to 1891, all through the years of the decrease and controversy, and it has been my duty to inspect the rookeries and seals from time to time and to report the condition of both to the Government and company agents. [Page 137] It has been my duty to thoroughly inform myself of the number of male seals—bachelors—on each rookery and to select the grounds to be driven from every killing day throughout each killing season, and I believe I never allowed the seals to be overdriven or the drives to be made too often. I remember seeing an occasional, sealing schooner in Bering Sea as long ago as 1878, but it was in 1884 they came in large numbers. At first it was supposed they intended to raid the rookeries, and we armed a number of men and kept guard every night, and we drove off any boats we found coming to a rookery. Sometimes in a dense fog or very dark night they landed and killed a few hundred seals, but the numbers taken in this manner are too small to be considered.

About 1886 I noticed that the lines of former years were not filled with cows, and every succeeding year since then has shown a more marked decrease. In 1889 the bachelors were so few on the hauling grounds that the standard weight of skins was lowered to 5 pounds, and hundreds were taken at only 4 pounds in order to fill the quota of 100,000.

It was noticed by everyone on the island at this time that as the seals decreased on the rookeries from year to year the number of dead pups increased, until in 1891 the rookeries were covered with them. From 1884 the schooners kept on increasing, until in 1891 there was more than one hundred. These schooners care very little about coming to the islands to take seals on the land, for they only have to hover around the fishing banks from 50 to 200 miles away and take all the seals they want. It is to these banks the cow seals go to feed after the birth of their young, and it is here they are shot and killed, and the pups are left to starve and die on the rookeries.

Last year I seen thousands of such pups, and I saw many of them opened, and in all cases there was not a sign of food in their stomachs. I never seen a pup that had a mother living to suckle it look poor or sick or starved; nor did I ever see or hear of a sick or diseased seal, although I have eaten the flesh of the fur seal all my life, and it is and has ever been the staple meat ration of our people.

Seal meat is cooked at the company house every day while seals are to be had, and it is eaten by all the white men on the island. Men talk of epidemics among seals and of impotent bulls on the rookeries, but those who have spent a lifetime on the seal islands, and whose business and duty it has been to guard and observe them, have no knowledge of the existence of either. An impotent bull dare not attempt to go on a rookery, even had he a desire to do so. Excepting the extremely old and feeble, I have never seen a bull that was impotent.

The seals come to the islands every year from the southward, through the passes of the Aleutian Islands; and the bulls reach the islands late in April or early in May, and they continue to haul out till June. They select their stations on the rookeries, and I believe they generally return to the spot they occupied the previous year, and they stay there till August or September without food or water and without much rest or sleep. The cows begin to haul out early in June, and they continue to haul out till about the middle of July, and the pups are born soon after the cows land on, the rookeries. When the pup is born it is utterly helpless and would drown if put into water. Those born nearest the water are often drowned in the surf when the sea is rough in stormy weather. When the pup is a few days old the cow goes into the sea to feed, and as the pup grows older the cow will stay longer and longer, until sometimes she will be away for a week. When the cows return they go to their own pups, nor will a cow suckle any pup but her own. The pups would suck any cow that would let them, for they do not seem to know one cow from another. At 7 or 8 weeks old the pups learn to swim by first paddling in the shallow water, but after learning to swim they appear to prefer to stay on land until the cold weather drives them off in November.

Until 1891 we were allowed to kill several thousand pup seals for food in November, about the time they were ready to leave the island. We generally killed ten or twelve for every person on the island, and when we killed them they were always found to be full of milk.

The bachelors commence to haul out in May, and they haul out to late in July, the older ones coming early and the younger ones later, and I have found that the seals killed in May and early June were fat, and that their stomachs were full of food, principally codfish, and that later in the season they were poor and had nothing in their stomachs. My opinion, therefore, is that none but the mother seals go out in the sea to eat during the time the herds are on the islands, and this accounts for the great number of cows shot by the sealing schooners in Bering Sea during July, August, and September. I was visiting in San Francisco in the winter of 1890–91, and I worked in a fur store during several months of my stay there, and I was called on to handle and inspect thousands of the skins taken by schooners in Bering Sea, and they were nearly all cow-seal skins.

[Page 138]

I know of no other explanation than this: The cows are shot and killed when they go into the sea to feed, and the pups die on the rookeries. This, I think, is the true solution of the vexed question, “What has become of the seals?” When the season ends and the compact family organization breaks up, the bulls begin to leave the islands, going, away slowly through September and early October before they are all gone.

The bachelors, cows, and pups go in November, the older bachelors leaving late in October and the pups in November. Sometimes in good, mild weather bachelors are found and killed for food late in January.

The movements of the seals are governed quite considerably by the weather. When they do leave the island they go southward and pass once more through the passes of the Aleutian Islands and out into the North Pacific Ocean.

It is usually supposed that seals are like wild animals. This is not so. They are used to the natives and will not run far from them. The little pups will come to them, and even in the fall, when they are older, we can take them up in our hands and see whether they are males or females. We can drive the seals about in little or large bands just as we want them to go, and they are easy to manage. We protect and take good care of the seals, and if they were not killed in the sea we could make them increase upon the islands so that they would be as many as before.

Anton Melovedoff.
Wm. H. Williams,
Treasury Agent in Charge of Seal Islands.

[Deposition of J. C. Redpath, agent of lessees on St. Paul Island.]

habits, management, and rules of fur companies—pelagic sealing.

St. Paul Island, Pribilof Group,
Alaska, U. S. A., ss:

J. C. Redpath, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I am an American citizen, a native of Connecticut, and I am 48 years of age. At present I am a resident of St. Paul Island, Alaska. I have resided on the seal islands of St. George and St. Paul since my first coming to Alaska in 1875. My present occupation is that of local agent on St. Paul Island for the present lessees, the North American Commercial Company. I have a practical knowledge of and am thoroughly conversant with the habits and conditions of the fur seal as it exists on the Pribilof Islands of St. George and St. Paul, and also of the methods adopted and practiced in the taking of the skins, and of the several efforts made by the former and present lessees, as experience taught them, to increase the herd and to build up the rookeries and perpetuate seal life. I have had a personal experience of seventeen seasons on the killing grounds in different situations, from that of seal clubber to foreman, several years of which I have been the resident local agent. My position as local agent has led me to make a careful study of the seal question, and it is my duty to report, from time to time, to the general agent of the lessees the result of my observations.

The Alaskan fur seal is a native of the Pribilof Islands, and, unless prevented, will return to those islands every year with the regularity of the seasons. All the peculiarities of nature that surround the Pribilof group of islands, such as low and even temperature, fog, mist, and perpetually clouded sky, seem to indicate their fitness and adaptability as a home for the Alaskan fur seal; and with an instinct bordering on reason they have selected these lonely and barren islands as the choicest spots of earth upon which to assemble and dwell together during their six months’ stay on land; and annually they journey across thousands of miles of ocean and pass hundreds of islands, without pause or rest, until they come to the place of their birth. And it is a well-established fact that upon no other land in the world do the Alaskan fur seal haul out of water.

Early in May the bulls approach the islands, and, after cautiously and carefully reconnoitering the surroundings, haul out and select their stations on the rookeries, where they patiently await the coming of the cows. When they first appear upon the rookeries the bulls are fat and sleek and very aggressive, but after a stay of from three to four months without food they crawl away from the rookeries in a very lean condition. In my opinion the bull seal returns to the spot he occupied the preceding [Page 139] years, and I know of several instances, where he could be distinguished by the loss of an eye or a nipper, in which he actually did return for a series of years to the same spot.

The mother seals or cows commence to haul out about June 10, and nearly all of them are on the rookeries by July 15, and I believe they bring forth their young almost immediately after reaching their places on the rookeries. When the pup is from four to six days old the mother goes into the water for food, and as time passes her stay becomes longer, until finally she will be away from her pup for several days at a time and sometimes for a whole week. During these longer migrations she often goes 200 miles from the rookery, and I have been informed by men who were engaged in the trade of pelagic hunting that they had taken “mothers in milk” at a distance of over 200 miles from the Seal Islands.

No cow will nurse any pup but her own, and I have often watched the pups attempt to suck cows, but they were always driven off; and this fact convinces me that the cow recognizes her own pup and that the pup does not know its dam. At birth and for several weeks after the pup is utterly helpless and entirely dependent on its dam for sustenance, and should anything prevent her return during this period it dies on the rookery. This has been demonstrated beyond a doubt since the sealing vessels have operated largely in Bering Sea during the months of July, August, and September, and which, killing the cows at the feeding grounds, left the pups to die on the islands.

At about five weeks old the pups begin to run about and congregate in bunches or “pods,” and at six to eight weeks old they go into the shallow water and gradually learn to swim.

They are not amphibious when born, nor can they swim for several weeks thereafter, and were they put into the water would perish beyond a doubt, as has been well established by the drowning of pups caught by the surf in stormy weather. After learning to swim the pups still draw their sustenance from the cows, and I have noticed at the annual killing of pups for food in November that their stomachs were always full of milk and nothing else, although the cows had left the island some days before. I have no knowledge of the pups obtaining sustenance of any kind except that furnished by the cows, nor have I ever seen anything but milk in a dead pup’s stomach. The young males, from two to five years old, whose skins are taken by the lessees, begin to haul out on land in May and they continue to haul out till July. They herd by themselves during the months of May, June, and July, and they do this because, during the breeding season, they dare not approach the breeding rookeries or the bulls would destroy them. Being thus debarred from a position on the breeding rookeries or from intermingling with the cows, they herd together on the hauling grounds, where they are easily approached and surrounded by the natives, who drive them to the killing grounds without disturbing the breeding rookeries.

Young males killed in May and June, when examined, are found to be in prime condition, and their stomachs are filled with fish—principally codfish—but those killed later in the season are found to be poor and lean and their stomachs empty, which shows that the males rarely leave the islands for food during the summer months.

Statute law forbids the killing of the female seal, and nature regulates the matter so that there is no danger of their being driven or killed during the regular killing season, which takes place in June and July, when all the “killing for skins” is done, and after all my experience here I am free to say that a small fraction of 1 per cent would represent all the females killed on the islands since they became the property of the United States.

The compact family arrangement so tenaciously adhered to during the breeding season becomes relaxed in August, and the females scatter, and a few of them mix up with the young males, and when the natives make a drive for food it occasionally happens that a female will accompany the males, and sometimes one or two may be accidentally killed. I use the word “accidentally” advisedly, because there is no good reason why the natives or the lessees should kill a female seal designedly, as the skin is of no more use or value (if so much) nor its flesh as good for food as is that of the male; and, excepting accidents, it is a fact that no female seals are or ever were killed on the Pribilof Islands since American rules and regulations were established there.

The regular killing season for skins under the lease begins on June 1 and ends practically on the last of July, and during this period the first-class Alaskan fur-seal skins are taken. The seals are driven from the hauling to the killing grounds by experienced natives under the orders of the native chief, and the constant aim and object of all concerned is to exercise the greatest care in driving, so that the animals may not be injured or abused in any manner.

[Page 140]

As the regulations require the lessees to pay for every skin taken from seals killed by the orders of their local agents, and as the skin of an over-heated seal is valueless, it is only reasonable to suppose that they would be the last men living to encourage or to allow their employees to overdrive or in any manner injure the seals. I know that the orders given to me, as local agent, were always the most positive and emphatic kind on this point, and they were always obeyed to the letter. Instead of overdriving or neglecting the seals the lessees have endeavored to do everything in their power to shorten the distances between the hauling and killing grounds, or between the hauling grounds and the salt house.

Before the Alaska Commercial Company leased the Seal Islands in 1870, it was a common practice to drive seals from North East Point to the village on St. Paul Island, a distance of 12 miles, and from Zapadnie to the village on St. George Island, a distance of 6 miles, across a very rough and rugged country.

From Halfway Point and from Zapadnie, on St. Paul Island, seals were driven, respectively, 5 and 6 miles.

When the Alaska Commercial Company took control of the islands the drive from North East Point was prohibited and a salt house and other necessary buildings erected within 2 miles of the killing ground, and all the skins taken there were salted and stored and shipped from North East Point. In 1879 a killing ground was made, and a salt house built at Halfway Point, within 2 miles of the hauling grounds, and all skins taken at the point are salted there. At Zapadnie, the same year, a killing ground was made within a mile of the hauling ground, and the skins taken there are taken to the village salt houses in boats, or, when the weather is unfavorable, by team and wagon.,

Since 1878 there has not been a drive made on St. Paul Island to exceed 2 miles. At Zapadnie, St. George, a salt house was built about 1875 and the 6-mile drive prohibited, and a trail made at great expense across the island, over which the skins are taken on pack saddles to the village. Since 1874 no seals have been driven on St. George Island to exceed 2½ miles.

Although the seals are comparatively tame after being on the land for a short time and do not get scared so easily as is commonly supposed, the rules and regulations of the Treasury Department are very strict on the question of absolute protection to the seals on the islands, and the Treasury agents have always most rigidly enforced them.

It is unlawful to fire a gun on the islands from the time the first seal appears in the spring until the last one leaves at the end of the season; and in order to properly enforce this law the firearms are taken from the natives and locked up in the Government house, in care of the Treasury agents.

No person is allowed to go near a rookery unless by special order of the Treasury agent; and, when driving from the hauling grounds, the natives are forbidden to smoke or make any unusual noise or to do anything that might disturb or frighten the seals. All driving is done when the weather is cool and moist, and when the condition of the weather demands it the drives are made in the cool of the night, and in no case are seals driven at a higher rate of speed than about half a mile an hour. So carefully is the driving done that it has been found necessary to divide the native drivers into several “watches” which relieve each other on the road, because, the pace being so slow, the men get cold.

From 1875 to 1883 it was no uncommon thing for the lessees to take the annual quota of 100,000 skins between June 1 and July 20, and yet there was no sign of any decrease, but rather an expansion of most of the rookeries.

I do not pretend to be able to say how many seals there are, or ever were, on the rookeries; nor do I believe anybody else can tell, for the rookeries are so broken and filled with rocks it is impossible to estimate the number of seals upon them with any approach to accuracy. The lines of expansion and contraction are plain enough, and can be seen and understood by the whole community.

Until 1884 sealing schooners were seen but very seldom near the islands or in Bering Sea, and the few seals taken by the hunters who raided the rookeries occasionally are too paltry to be seriously considered, because the raids were so few and the facilities for taking many seals off so utterly insignificant. In 1884 the sealing schooners became numerous. I believe there were about 30 in the sea that year, and they have increased very rapidly every year since, until now they are said to be about 120. As the schooners increased the seals decreased, and the lines of contraction on the rookeries were noticed to draw nearer and nearer to the beach, and the killable seals became fewer in number and harder to find. In 1886 the decrease was so plain that the natives and all the agents on the islands saw it and were startled, and theories of all sorts were advanced in an attempt to account for a cause.

[Page 141]

A dearth of bulls on the breeding rookeries was a pet theory of one or two transient visitors, but it only needed a thorough investigation of the condition of the rookeries to convince the most skeptical that there were plenty of bulls, and to spare, and that hardly a cow could be found on the rookeries without a pup at her side.

For five years I have given this particular subject my most earnest attention, and every succeeding year’s experience has convinced me that there is not, and never was, a dearth of bulls. The theory of impotency of the young bulls because of overdriving when young is not worthy of consideration by any sane or honest man who has ever seen a bull seal on a breeding rookery; and as I have already answered the question of overdriving, I will only add here that no young bull ever goes upon a breeding rookery until he is able to fight his way in, and an impotent bull has no desire to fight, nor could he win a position on the rookery were he to attempt it. The man is not alive who ever saw a 6 or 7 year old bull seal impotent.

Another theory, equally untrue, was that an epidemic had seized the herd; but investigations of the closest kind have never revealed the death, on the islands, of a full-grown seal from unknown causes. Let it be remembered that the flesh of the seal is the staple diet of the natives and that it is eaten daily by most of the white employees as well; and yet it is true that a sign of taint or disease has never been found on a seal carcass in the memory of man. It was not until so many thousands of dead pups were found upon the rookeries that the problem was solved.

The truth is that when the cows go out to the feeding grounds to feed they are shot and killed by the pelagic hunter, and the pups, deprived of sustenance, die upon the rookeries. Excepting a few pups killed by the surf occasionally, it has been demonstrated that all the pups found dead are poor and starved, and when examined their stomachs are found to be without a sign of food of any sort. In 1891 the rookeries on St. Paul Island were covered, in places, with dead pups, all of which had every symptom of having died of hunger, and on opening several of them the stomachs were found to be empty.

The resident physician, Dr. Ackerly, examined many of them and found in every instance that starvation was the cause of death. The lowest estimates made at the time, placing the number of dead pups on the rookeries at 25,000, is too high.

It has been said that man can do nothing to facilitate the propagation of the fur seal. My experience does not support this. The reservation of females and the killing of the surplus males, so that each bull can have a reasonable number of cows, is more advantage to the growth of the rookeries than when in a state of nature bulls killed each other in their efforts to secure a single cow.

The same care can be and is exercised in the handling and management of the seal herd as is bestowed by a ranchman upon his bands of ranging stock, and is productive of like results. The seals have become so accustomed to the natives that the presence of the latter does not disturb them. The pups are easily handled by the natives, and formerly, when used as an article of food, thousands of pups were actually picked up and examined, in accordance with Government requirement, to avoid the killing of a female. So easily are the seals controlled that when a drive of “bachelors” is made to the killing grounds a guard of two or three small boys is sufficient to keep them from straying, and from the general band any number from one upward can be readily cut out. It is possible in the future, as it has been in the past, to reserve unmolested suitable areas to serve as breeding grounds; to set aside each year a proper number of young males for future service upon the rookeries, and by the application of the ordinary stock-breeding principles not only to perpetuate but to rapidly increase the seal herd.

To one who has spent so many years among the seals as I have, and who has taken so much interest in them, it does appear to be wrong that they should be allowed to be so ruthlessly and indiscriminatety slaughtered by pelagic hunters, who secure only about one-fourth of all they kill. There is no doubt in my mind that unless immediate protection be given to the Alaskan fur seal the species will be practically destroyed in a very few years, and in order to protect them pelagic hunting must be absolutely prohibited.

N. B.—The foregoing is substantially the same testimony that I gave to the Commissioners who visited the islands in 1891.

J. C. Redpath.

Wm. H. Williams,
Treasury Agent in charge of Seal Islands.
[Page 142]

[Deposition of W. B. Taylor, Assistant Treasury Agent on St. George Island.]

management, habits, pelagic sealing.

District of Columbia, City of Washington, ss:

W. B. Taylor, of Omaha, Nebr., being duly sworn, deposes and says: I am 41 years of age, secretary and treasurer of the Globe Loan and Trust Company, of Omaha, Nebr., and am not and never have been in any way connected with any company engaged in the seal-skin industry. In the year 1881 I was assistant treasury agent for the Seal Islands. I arrived on the islands in the latter part of May of that year, and after a week’s stay on St. Paul Island was detailed to St. George, remaining there until the latter part of August. Since then I have not been on the islands. While on St. George I was on the killing grounds every day during the season and visited the rookeries almost daily, both in connection with my official duties and for the purpose of studying seal life. From carefully observing the grounds formerly occupied by breeding seals, as pointed out to me by the natives, and from statements made me by those on the island, I believe there were more seals on the islands in 1881 than in any year previous to that time. I believe that the increase and decrease of seal life can be certainly told from accurate measurements of the breeding grounds, because the seals herd together as closely as possible, whether there are few or many of them. But the number of seals can not be estimated with even approximate accuracy, because of the roughness and unevenness of the ground, and because during the height of the season a majority of the females (called cows) are out at sea feeding, being often obliged to go 30 or more miles from the islands for this purpose, and not returning till late at night. I think the number of seals heretofore estimated has been largely exaggerated, and no dependence can be placed on any estimate as to their number.

During the year I was on the island of St. George I did not see to exceed 25 dead pups on the rookeries, and the bodies of these were not emaciated, but had evidently been killed by the old bulls climbing over them in their combats. From my observations I am convinced a pup must be six or eight weeks old before it can swim, and that a female generally teaches her own pup the use of his flippers. Birth in the water would mean immediate death to the pup, both because of the fact last stated and from the further fact that for a day or two after birth a pup is entirely helpless. In my judgment, then, a seal pup for the first few weeks of its life is a land quadruped, and in no sense an amphibian. I believe that a seal is naturally a land animal, as all copulation, birth, and nursing takes place on shore; and the only reason I think the seals seek the water is because they are compelled so to do in order to obtain food. This is verified from the fact that the seals remain on land as long as possible until the need of food and severity of the weather compel them to take to the sea. A female when she returns from the feeding grounds will always select her own pup from all those on the rookeries, and will give suck to no other. It is therefore my opinion that if a mother seal is killed the pup will certainly die of starvation.

I made a very particular examination and study of the methods employed by the natives in driving and killing the young males or bachelors, and, in my opinion, these methods are the very best that could be adopted, and I can conceive of no other way which could be employed and preserve seal life so effectually. In starting to drive, the bachelors are driven from the hauling grounds, which are separated from the breeding grounds. Great care was always taken not to disturb the breeders; no one was ever allowed to go on the breeding grounds during the rutting season, all observations as to the habits being made from overhanging cliffs or some elevation in the vicinity of the harems. I never saw but one female killed out of the 20,000 taken on St. George Island in 1881, and that was accidental. A drive is always made between 2 and 6 o’clock in the morning, when the weather is cool and there is less liability of overheating the seals. Seals are driven as slowly as possible, and still keep them in motion. I do not think that there were 50 seals killed during the season by overheating and smothering, and in all cases the skins of these were taken and counted with the other skins transported to the salt houses. I never saw or heard of the generative organs of a male seal being injured by redriving, and it seems to me to be utterly absurd that anyone could think that an animal with such wonderful vitality as is possessed by the male seal could be injured or his reproductive powers impaired by driving or redriving. If such a thing should occur it would be at once noticeable, for the impotent bull would certainly haul up with the bachelors, having no inclination and vigor to maintain himself on the rookeries.

It is my opinion that a bull is able to serve from 3 to 5 cows a day, and certainly over 100 in a season. I have seen over 40 cows at one time in a harem, and the bull [Page 143] who possessed this harem was continually striving to obtain more cows. There was but one raid on the rookeries while I was there, and that took place on Otter Island, about 60 skins being taken. After that raid the Government kept a man on Otter Island during the entire summer to protect it from marauders. Raids on the islands never affected seal life to any extent. Since my residence on the Pribilof Islands I have kept a very careful watch of the progress of events there, and have interviewed a great many connected with the seal industry. I am of the conviction that the reported decrease in seal life on these islands can be attributed to no other cause save pelagic sealing. While I was located at St. George Island in 1881 pelagic sealing was then, and previous to that time had been, of very little consequence, having very slight effect upon seal life. Not more than 4 or 5 vessels were engaged in pelagic sealing in 1881 in the waters of Bering Sea, and prior to that time a still fewer number were so engaged. But since 1881 this industry has grown yearly, until now about 100 vessels are destroying the seals in great numbers, and, as I am informed and believe, the great majority of those killed are females. Then, too, large numbers are killed in this way which are never recovered or reported. It is therefore, in my opinion, necessary that the seals should be protected, and all killing in the water prohibited in all waters which the seal herd frequents, and especially in Bering Sea and while the herd are en route to and from the islands through the Aleutian passes.

W. B. Taylor.
[seal.]
Sevellon A. Brown.

[Deposition of L. G. Shepard, captain, United States Revenue Marine.]

pelagic seizure.

* * * * * * *

I examined the skins taken from sealing vessels seized in 1887 and 1889, over 12,000 skins, and of these at least two-thirds or three-fourths were the skins of females. Of the females taken in the Pacific Ocean and early in the season in Bering Sea nearly all are heavy with young, and the death of the female necessarily causes the death of the unborn pup seal; in fact, I have seen on nearly every vessel seized the pelts of unborn pups which had been taken from their mothers. Of the females taken in Bering Sea nearly all are in milk, and I have seen the milk come from the carcasses of dead females lying on the decks of sealing vessels which were more than 100 miles from the Pribilof Islands. From this fact and from the further fact that I have seen seals in the water over 150 miles from the islands during the summer, I am convinced that the female, after giving birth to her young on the rookeries, goes at least 150 miles, in many cases, from the islands in search of food. It is impossible to distinguish a male from a female seal in the water, except in the case of a very old bull, when his size distinguishes him. Therefore, open-sea sealing is entirely indiscriminate as to sex or age. I consider it necessary for the preservation of the seal herd which resorts to the Pribilof Islands, and for the prevention of their early extermination, that pelagic sealing should cease in all waters which they frequent.

I do not know and I never heard of any other place along the American coast or islands where the fur seals haul up, and it is my opinion that the fur-seal pup of the Alaskan hero is born nowhere else but on the Pribilof Islands. It is my belief that a pup born in the water would drown, for I am convinced, from statements made me by the natives and those thoroughly familiar with seal habits, that a pup for the first weeks of its life is unable to swim. It is my opinion that should pelagic sealing be prohibited in a zone 30, 40, or 50 miles about the Pribilof Islands it would be utterly useless as a protection to seal life, because female seals go much farther than that in search of food, and because fogs are so prevalent about those islands that it would be impossible to enforce any such prohibition.

L. G. Shepard,
Captain, U. S. Revenue Marine,
Chief of Division, Revenue Marine
.

[seal.]
Geo. Y. Coffin,
Notary Public.
[Page 144]

[Extract from affidavit of John Malowansky, agent of lessees of Commander Islands.]

management; pelagic sealing.

* * * * * * *

In 1891 the schooner J. H. Lewis was caught near the islands by the Russian gunboat Aleut and found to have 416 skins on board. I made a personal examination of these skins, and found that from 90 to 95 per cent were those of female seals.

* * * * * * *

John Malowansky.

[seal.]
Clement Bennett,
Notary Public.

[Extract from deposition of Charles T. Wagner, agent of Alaska Commercial Company.]

habits: pelagic sealing.

* * * * * * *

I have observed that by far the larger portion of skins purchased by me were taken from female seals. Not less than 8 out of every 10 were from cows with pup or in milk. I have often bought skins taken from cow seals where the young pup had been cut out of the mother and was kept alive for several days, until it became such a nuisance from constant yelping that I directed it to be killed, as it would not eat and would eventually die of starvation.

* * * * * * *

C. T. Wagner.

[seal.]
Clement Bennett,
Notary Public.

[Deposition of Peter Trearsheit, sealer (master).]

pelagic sealing.

Peter Trearsheit, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I am 27 years old and reside at Sitka. Am by occupation a seaman and seal hunter. Have been engaged in catching seal three seasons. Last season I commanded the sealing schooner Sitka, of Sitka. Took seal along the coast as far as Yakutat. First seal were seen and caught last year off Sitka Sound and last year off Salisbury Sound in April and May. The seal are working to westward all the time. Have always used a shotgun to take seal. About 60 per cent of the seal shot with shotgun are lost. A much larger per cent are lost when rifle is used. The seals taken by me have been females mostly with pup. Have never killed a bull in my life. A few yearlings are taken, all of which are females. The sex of the seal can not be told in the water. Hunters use no discrimination, and everything in the shape of a seal that comes near the boat is killed. When seal are asleep lying with their heads on the water and are killed, they most always float, but if shot as they put their heads out of water they sink almost immediately. Always shoot a seal in the head when it is possible to do so.

Never heard of nor seen pups born in the water or on the coast of Alaska outside of Pribilof Islands. Have never seen or heard of seals hauling up on the coast elsewhere than on the Pribilof Islands. They very seldom come nearer this coast than 20 miles when advancing north toward Bering Sea. I think if sealing was stopped in Bering Sea that seal would become more plentiful along the coast, and if it is not stopped the herd will soon be destroyed.

Peter Trearsheit.

A. W. Lavender,
United States Treasury Agent.
[Page 145]

[Deposition of Niels Bonde, sealer (mate).]

pelagic sealing.

Province of British Columbia, City of Victoria., ss:

Niels Bonde, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I am 24 years of age; residence, Victoria, British Columbia; occupation, seaman. I went sealing as deck hand in the British schooner Kate, Captain Moss, master, in 1887. We had twenty canoes and Indian hunters who used spears, except in calm weather, when they would use shotguns. We sailed from Victoria the 15th of March, sealing off Barclay Sound, between there and Cape Cook, and caught 522 seals. Came back to Victoria in May, discharged our skins, and then went to Bering Sea, arriving there in July. We came out of the Bering Sea the latter part of August, and had caught about 1,700 seals between the Pribilof Islands and Unalaska; we caught them from 10 to 100 or more miles off St. George Island. The largest catch we had that year in any one day was 266 seals. We only took 8 canoes and 1 boat into Bering Sea.

In 1888 I left Victoria on the 11th of April as mate and interpreter on the British schooner Arannah, H. F. Siewart, master, and carried 16 canoes while sealing on the coast, and Indian hunters with spears, but in calm weather they used shotguns. We caught about 100 seals on the coast, and then in the latter part of May left for the Commander Islands, on the Russian side of the Bering Sea, and was seized on the 1st of July by the Russian authorities.

I left Victoria on the 28th of May, 1889, in the British schooner Kate, as deck hand, with 10 canoes and Indian hunters with spears and shotguns. The Indians used spears chiefly. We went directly to the Shumagin Island, where we took in water and provisions, and went into Bering Sea through Unamak Pass, and sealed in those waters till some time in August, when we were ordered out by the revenue cutter and went to Victoria. We caught a little over 800 seals in the Bering Sea that year.

In 1890 I left Victoria on the 17th of January in the British schooner Pioneer, Morgan, master. I shipped as a deck hand. We had 5 boats and white hunters, who used shotguns and rifles. We commenced sealing off the California coast, near Cape Blanco, and worked our way up the coast to Barclay Sound, and caught about 400 seals and put them aboard another vessel and then sealed along the coast to Bering Sea, and caught on our way up and in the sea about 1,600 more, and left Bering Sea for Victoria the latter part of August.

The seals caught along the coast after the 1st of April are mostly pregnant females, and those caught in Bering Sea were females that had given birth to their young. I often noticed the milk flowing out of their breasts when being skinned, and have seen them killed more than 100 miles from the Seal Islands. I have seen live pups cut out of their mothers and live around on the decks for a week. On the Pioneer we had a couple of good hunters who would get almost all they shot at, while some of our hunters would lose a good many that they would kill and wound. A green hunter will not get more than 1 out of 5, and I have known one hunter on our vessel who shot 80 shots and got only 4 seals. Indian hunters that use spears seldom lose any that are struck, and there is no wounded to go away and die. I can not say positively as to the decrease in numbers, but I know they are much more shy now than when I commenced sealing.

I know of no place where seals haul up on the coast, nor do I believe there is any.

Niels Bonde.

[seal.]
Levi W. Myers,
United States Consul.

[Deposition of Henry Brown, sealer (boat puller).]

pelagic sealing.

Province of British Columbia, City of Victoria, ss:

Henry Brown, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I am 42 years of age, and reside in Victoria, British Columbia. I am by occupation a seaman. On or about February 21, 1890, I shipped as an able seaman, but did service as a boat steerer on the sealing schooner Minnie, which cleared from Victoria. She carried 12 canoes and a stern boat. Each canoe was manned by two Indians, who used spears principally. The stern boat was manned by white men, who used rifles and shotguns, principally shotguns. [Page 146] I acted as steererman in the stern boat. We hunted seals all along the coast from Grays Harbor to the passes leading into Bering Sea. The first seals seen were about 30 miles south and west of Cape Flattery. We then followed the herd northward, capturing about 1,000 seals on the coast, which we transferred to the American steam schooner Mischief at sea, about 15 miles from Sand Point. We then proceeded to the Bering Sea, entering through the Unamak Pass about the middle of July. We captured over 1,200 seals all the way from 24 to 100 miles away from the Pribilof Islands. We then returned to Sand Point, and arrived back at Victoria about the last of November.

On January 19, 1891, I shipped at Victoria as an able seaman, and took the boatsteerer’s billet on the sealing schooner Mascot, Lawrence, master. She carried 1 stern boat and 10 canoes. The canoes were manned by Indians, who used spears in hunting the seals, and the stern boat, in which I was steerer, was manned by 3 white men. The hunter used a shotgun. We sealed all along the coast from Cape Flattery up to Cape Cook, on Vancouver Island, and captured 9 seals. The only one taken by the stern boat was a female with a pup in her. The pup was thrown into the ocean. On the 22d of May we arrived back in Victoria.

On the 25th of February, 1892, I shipped at Victoria, British Columbia, on the sealing schooner May Belle, Smith, master. I shipped as an able seaman, and did service in the stern boat as boat steerer. She also carried 10 canoes, each being manned by 2 Indians, who used the spear in hunting. We sealed along the coast from Destruction Island as far north as Triangle Island, off the Vancouver shore, and captured but one female seal. On the 18th of April I left the May Belle at Clayaquot Sound and returned to Victoria on the 5th of May on the steam schooner Maud.

The seal captured by us along the coast in 1890 were all gravid females. I do not know the sex of those taken by our Indians on the coast in that year. We did not capture any gravid seals in the Bering Sea. Nearly all the seals taken in Bering Sea were cows in milk. We captured a few young seals in the sea of both sexes.

In 1890 our hunter in the stern boat secured 60 seals, and lost over 200 seals that he wounded. The Indians make a sure work of it, and secure nearly every seal that they spear. They do not make so much noise in approaching a sleeping seal as the white hunters do. When an Indian in a canoe is approaching a bunch of seals asleep on the water he does not remove his paddle from the water, but dexterously and noiselessly moves it in the water, because the least sound would awaken the seals. The hunter who uses a gun not only disturbs the seal he shoots, but awakens and disturbs the others, who then make their escape.

In 1891 I noticed that there was a considerable decrease in the number of seals seen in the water; also that they were more shy and wakeful as compared with my observations in 1890. A cow seal that’s heavy with pup is sluggish and sleeps more soundly than the males, and for that reason they are more readily approached. I have never known a black pup to be captured on the coast. Seals do not haul out upon the land along the coast, nor give birth to their young on the kelp or in the water. I have never heard the Indians or white sealers say there is a place on the coast where seals haul out and breed. A great many seals that are shot would sink before we could secure them. Sometimes the water above the sinking seal would be so discolored by the blood that it was impossible to see it and secure it with the gaffhook, which all sealing boats carry for that purpose. If pelagic sealing is continued, especially with guns, in a few years the seal herd will become commercially destroyed. Nearly every seal captured causes the death of either an unborn pup or the death of a young pup by starvation on the islands. All pelagic sealing should be prohibited after April 1 of each year until such time as the young pups are able to subsist without nourishment from their mothers. It is practically impossible to distinguish the age or sex of seals in the water while approaching them while at a reasonable gunshot distance from them excepting in the case of old bulls. Old bulls and male seals appear to enter Bering Sea before the cows leave the coast. Our last catch of seals on the coast were almost exclusively gravid females.

  • Henry (his x mark) Brown.
  • John McLeod.

[seal.]
Levi W. Myers,
United States Consul.
[Page 147]

[Deposition of Thomas Brown (No. 1), sealer (boat puller).]

pelagic sealing.

Dominion of Canada, Victoria, British Columbia, ss:

Thomas Brown, being duly sworn, deposes and says: My age is 31 years; my residence is Victoria, British Columbia; occupation, seaman. I went sealing in 1889 from San Francisco, Cal. (I do not remember the name of the vessel); Captain Scott was master. We sealed as far south as San Diego, Cal., then went along the coast to Farallone Islands, opposite San Francisco. We had 5 boats, 3 men to each boat, and 1 stern boat, all white men; we used shotguns and rifles; the seals were very plentiful that year; most all the seals that we shot and secured were females and had young pups in them, and we would sometimes skin them. If we didn’t get to a seal soon after it was shot it would sink, and we lost a great many; probably got about 1 out of 5 of all the seals shot. We sealed as far as Queen Charlotte Islands, and got about 195 seals in the two months’ sealing. We did not enter Bering Sea that year.

In 1890 I went sealing again in the schooner Sea Lion, Madison, master; had 5 boats, and 3 men to each boat; I was boat puller; we were sealing about three months and got about 400 seals, most all females. This year the seals were wilder than the year before; I think it was because they were being hunted so much. We did not capture as many in proportion to the number shot as we did the year previous, and did not save more than 1 out of 6 that we shot. We did not enter Bering Sea and returned to Victoria in April. Our catch was fully 80 per cent females. I do not think that seals give birth to their young on the kelp.

In 1891, in the month of February, I sailed from Victoria, British Columbia, on the schooner Thistle, Nicherson, master, on a sealing voyage. We had 17 boats, and 3 men to each boat, all white men. I signed as boat puller. Commenced sealing off Cape Flattery, and all the seals which we caught were pregnant females. I did not see as many seals as the years previous; I left the vessel in April at Victoria, British Columbia. The seals upon this voyage were more shy than in 1889, and more difficult to capture. During the trip of 1891 I don’t think we got more than 1 seal out of 6 that we killed; many were wounded, and others were shot dead and sank before the boat could get to them. The seals are decreasing in number rapidly, and in order to prevent the extermination of seals, the hunting of them should be prohibited until after the mother seals give birth to their young. Sealers should be notified of a closed season before they go to the expense of fitting out.

Thomas Brown.

[seal.]
Levi W. Myers, United States Consul.

[Deposition of Alfred Dardean, sealer (boat puller).]

pelagic sealing.

Dominion of Canada, Victoria, British Columbia, ss:

Alfred Dardean, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I reside at Victoria, British Columbia. My occupation for the last two years has been that of a seaman. I went sealing in the schooner Mollie Adams (afterwards changed to E. B. Marvin) as boat puller. We left Victoria, British Columbia, on the 27th of May, 1890, and commenced sealing up the coast toward Bering Sea; entered Bering Sea through the Unamak Pass about July 7 and sealed around the eastern part of Bering Sea until late in the fall. We caught over 900 skins before entering the sea and our whole catch that year was 2,159 skins. Of the seals that were caught off the coast fully 90 out of every 100 had young pups in them. The boats would bring the seals killed on board the vessel and we would take the young pups out and skin them. If the pup is a good, nice one, we would skin it and keep it for ourselves. I had 8 such skins myself. Four out of 5, if caught in May or June, would be alive when we cut them out of the mothers. One of them we kept for pretty near three weeks alive on deck by feeding it on condensed milk. One of the men finally killed it because it cried so pitifully. We only got 3 seals with pups in them in the Bering Sea. Most all of them were females that had given birth to their young on the islands, and the milk would run out of the teats on the deck when we would skin them. We caught female seals in milk more than 100 miles off the Pribilof Islands.

We had 7 boats, and a stern boat and 3 men to a boat. Our hunters used shotguns and were good hunters. They lost a good many seals, but I do not know what [Page 148] proportion was lost to those killed. Some of the hunters would lose 4 out of every 6 killed. We tried to shoot them while asleep, but shot all that came in our way. If we killed them too dead a great many would sink before we could get them, and were lost. Sometimes we could get some of these that had sunk with the gaff hook, but could not save many that way. A good many are wounded and escape only to die afterwards.

Hunters talk about the seals increasing from year to year, but I know they are decreasing, and if they keep on killing them the way they do now there will not be any left in a few years.

Alfred (his x mark) Dardean.

[seal.]
Levt W. Myers, United States Consul.

[Deposition of Arthur Griffin, sealer (boat puller and steerer).]

pelagic sealing.

Dominion of Canada, Victoria, British Columbia, ss:

Arthur Griffin, being duly sworn, deposes and says: My age is 24 years, and am by occupation a seafaring man, and reside at Victoria, British Columbia. On February 11, 1889, I sailed from Victoria as a boat puller on the sealing schooner Ariel, Buckman, master. She carried 6 hunting boats and 1 stern boat and had a white crew who use shotguns and rifles in hunting seals. We began sealing off the northern coast of California and followed the sealing herd northward, capturing about 700 seals in the North Pacific Ocean, two-thirds of which were females with pups. The balance were young seals, both male and female. We entered the Bering Sea on the 13th of July through the Unamak Pass and captured between 900 and 1,000 seals therein, most of which were females in milk. We returned to Victoria on 31st of August, 1889.

On January 10, 1890, I sailed from Victoria as a boat steerer in the schooner Sea Lion, Magason, master, and proceeded to San Francisco where we fitted out for sealing. From there a month later we went sealing. Our vessel carried a white crew, 5 boats, each boat manned by 3 men. We captured about 300 seals from San Francisco to Cape Flattery by the use of shotguns and rifles. We returned to Victoria about April 1.

I went out sealing again the same year on the E. B. Marvin, McKiel, master. I shipped as a boat steerer. We had a white crew and 7 boats and used shotguns and rifles while hunting the seals. We captured between 900 and 1,000 on the coast, most of which were females with pups. We entered the sea on July 12 through Unamak Pass and captured about 800 seals in those waters, about 90 per cent of which were females in milk.

A good hunter will often lose one-third of the seals he kills. A poor hunter will lose two-thirds of those he shoots. On an average hunters will lose 2 seals out of 3 of those they shoot. We captured females in milk from 20 to 100 miles from the rookeries. Seals do not haul out upon the land along the coast, nor do they give birth to their young on the kelp. We seek to shoot the seals while they are asleep on the water, because a seal shot while breeching is more likely to be lost. Seals ought not to be killed in the water during the months of April, May, June, July, and August.

Arthur Griffin.

[seal.]
Levi W. Myers, United States Consul.

[Deposition of James Harrison, sealer (boat puller).]

pelagic sealing.

Dominion of Canada, Victoria, British Columbia, ss:

James Harrison, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I reside at Victoria, British Columbia, and am by occupation a seafaring man. I have had experience in the sealhunting business. First went out sealing as boat puller along the Northern Pacific coast about the 26th of June, 1891; sailed from Victoria, British Columbia, in the [Page 149] schooner Triumph, Whidden, master. We had 2 boats and 1 stern boat, 3 men with each boat. We commenced sealing right off the coast; went as far south as the California coast and then hunted north to the west coast of Vancouver Islands; caught 500 skins during the season; almost all of them were pregnant females; out of 100 seals taken about 90 per cent would be females with young pups in them. I can’t tell a male from a female while in the water at a distance. On an average I think the hunters will save about 1 out of 3 that they kill, but they wound many more that escape and die afterwards. We entered the Bering Sea about the 1st of June, and caught about 200 seals in those waters. They were mostly mothers that had given birth to their young, and were around the fishing banks feeding. The hunters used shotguns and rifles. In the Bering Sea we killed both male and female, but I do not know the proportion of one to the other. I returned and was discharged at Victoria, British Columbia, about the last of August.

I sailed again about February 12, 1892, in the same vessel and the same master. We carried 2 boats and 3 men to each boat; all white men in the boats, but we had 16 Indian canoes, with 2 Indians in each canoe, and the Indians used shotguns, but did not capture any seals, and returned to Victoria, British Columbia, the 1st of April, and I was discharged at the custom-house at Victoria, British Columbia.

Seals were not as plentiful along the coast this year as they were in 1891. I think that for the proper preservation of the seals all pelagic hunting should be prohibited until the mother seals have given birth to their young.

James Harrison.
[seal.]
Levi W. Myers, United States Consul.

[Deposition of James Jamieson sealer (boat puller and mate).]

pelagic sealing.

Province of British Columbia, City of Victoria, ss:

James Jamieson, being first duly sworn, deposes and says: I am 23 years old, and am by occupation a seaman; I reside at Victoria, British Columbia. In March, 1887, I joined the British sealing schooner Mary Taylor, McKiel, master, at Victoria, British Columbia. We went on a cruise for seal. I was boat puller. She carried 5 sealing boats, manned with 3 white men each. There were 3 Indians with us part of the season. We used breech-loading shotguns and Winchester rifles. We began to seal when about 20 miles off Cape Flattery. We worked toward the northwest and captured between 60 and 100 seals on the coast, about two-thirds of which were females with pup; the balance were yearlings, consisting of male and female; after which we ran into Barclay Sound for supplies, from which place we worked to the northward toward the Bering Sea. We captured about 80 seals while en route to the sea; about two-thirds of these were females with pup, the balance being yearlings, about one-half male and one-half female.

In the latter part of January we entered the Bering Sea through the Unamak Pass, and commenced sealing there. We captured about 800 seals at a distance from the rookeries on the Pribilof Islands of from 20 miles to 200 miles; about three-fourths of the catch in the sea was female seals in milk, the balance consisting of yearlings and male seals. We returned to Victoria, British Columbia, some time in August.

In January, 1888, I joined the Mountain Chief, Jacobson, master, at Victoria, British Columbia. I was mate on this vessel. She carried 10 canoes, each manned by 2 Indians, who used spears while hunting the seal. We began sealing along the coast and captured about 85 seals, after which we sailed into Barclay Sound, when I left the Mountain Chief and joined the German schooner Adele as a cook. Hanson was captain of the Adele. We proceeded up the coast and took on 16 Indian sealers and 8 canoes. We then sealed along the coast toward the sea, capturing about 100 seals en route. In the latter part of June we entered the Bering Sea and proceeded to take seals in those waters. Captured about 700 in the sea. We arrived back to Victoria on the 22d of September.

In January, 1889, I shipped as a boat steerer on the British sealing schooner Theresa, Lawrence, master. She carried 6 boats, including the stern boat. Our crew and hunters were, white men and were equipped with Winchester rifles and breechloading shotguns with which to capture seals. We began sealing off the Columbia River and then worked up along the coast, capturing about 380 seals before entering Victoria, British Columbia, in April.

[Page 150]

In January, 1890, I shipped as a boat steerer on the sealing schooner Mollie Adams, McKeil, master. She carried 6 boats and a white crew, who used shotguns and rifles. We sailed as far south as Cape Mendocino, when we met the herd and proceeded to take them up along the coast, capturing about 400 seals, and then returned to Victoria, British Columbia, where we fitted out for the west coast and the Bering Sea. About the last of April I again sailed on a cruise for seals on the same vessel, having the same crew. Sealed up along the coast to Northeast Harbor, capturing 600 skins, which we transferred to the American steamer Mischief and shipped to Victoria, British Columbia. We then sailed through the Unamak Pass into the Bering Sea, when we at once began taking seals. Captured 1,000 seals in that sea, and after remaining in those waters for about two months we set sail for Victoria, British Columbia, on the 1st day of September, and arrived at Victoria on the 21st of the same month.

In January, 1891, I shipped as a seaman on the British sealing schooner Mascot, Lawrence, master, for a cruise for seals on the west coast. Our vessel carried 1 stern boat manned by white men, and 8 canoes, with 2 Indians to each canoe. We began sealing off Barclay Sound and caught 3 skins only, all of which were females with pup. We then ran into Clayquot Sound, when I left the Mascot and joined the British schooner Venture, Smith, master. I shipped as a seaman and hunter on the British schooner Venture. She carried an Indian crew and 6 canoes. The Indians used spears and breech-loading shotguns while hunting the seals. After securing our, Indian hunters we went to the Bering Sea and proceeded along the coast. We captured 56 skins. We entered the sea through the Unamak Pass in the latter part of June and commenced to catch seals. We captured 610 skins while in the sea. In the latter part of July we were ordered out of the sea by the U. S. S. Thetis. We returned to Victoria. In February, 1892, I joined the British sealing schooner Minnie, Tyson, master, at Dodges Cove, in Barclay Sound. I shipped as cook. The Minnie was equipped with 3 sealing boats, all manned with white men. We caught 5 seals along the coast. We then returned to Victoria, British Columbia, about the 20th of April.

In hunting along the coast I think about 80 per cent of those we caught were females, and most of them were carrying their young. We seldom caught any old bulls, but caught a few of the younger males. I have seen the unborn young cut out of the mother seal and live for a week without food. We used to skin some, but threw most of them overboard.

Nearly our whole catch in the Bering Sea after the 1st of July each year were females, and nearly all of them in milk, and had evidently given birth to their young but a short time before. The milk would run out on the deck as we skinned them. The Indian hunters, with spears, would not wound or lose but very few seals that they struck; but the ordinary white hunter will, on an average, lose over half that he kills and wounds. We try to take the seals when asleep on the waters, but the hunters are usually paid a certain sum for each seal taken, and they try to kill everything, without reference to age, sex, or condition.

I do not think that they haul upon the land on the coast, and I have never known of anyone taking a young seal on the coast that was born that year, nor do we catch any cow seals on the coast that have given birth to their young that year.

James Jamieson.

[seal.]
Levi W. Myers, United States Consul.

[Deposition of Andrew Laing, trader and sealer (mate).]

pelagic sealing.

Province of British Columbia, City of Victoria, ss;

Andrew Laing, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I am 42 years of age; residence, Victoria, British Columbia; occupation, trader. I went out as trader on the W. P. Sayward, of which I was part owner, in the years 1882, 1883, 1884, 1885, 1886, 1887, 1889, and 1890. In 1888 I went as mate on the Favorite, my boat having been seized the year before by the revenue cutter Push, but was finally released, so that I went in her again in 1889 and 1890. My vessel carried Indian hunters in all her trips previous to this year (1892), and they used canoes and spears in hunting seals exclusively. Prior to 1886 I nor my vessel had ever been in the Bering Sea hunting, but had cruised along the coast each year from the Columbia River to Kodiak [Page 151] Island, and then returned to Victoria, and had caught seals in greater or less numbers each year; but in 1886 and each year thereafter, excepting 1891, I have not only sealed on the coast, but have also been in the Bering Sea hunting seals.

My vessel went to the Bering Sea in 1891, but I did not go with her. The year I was on the Favorite she carried Indian hunters also, who used spears. It is now the practice to hunt along the coast early in the season from the Columbia River to the Bering Sea and enter those waters the fore part of July. Indian hunters will not stay out over ten days at a time when we are on the coast, so we have to come in and out quite often. This year I have changed my crew into white hunters, who use shotguns and rifles. When in Bering Sea we are usually from 50 to 150 miles from the Pribilof Islands. I did not pay any particular attention to the sex of the seals we caught on the coast or in the sea any further than we got a number of the yearlings and 2-year-olds on the coast, and that I have seen young live pups cut out of their dead mothers, and they would walk around on deck and bleat for three or four days and then die of starvation. In the Bering Sea I have noticed that in skinning seals milk would run out of the teats of females who had given birth recently to their young on the islands. I have caught this class of females from 75 to 100 miles from the Pribilof Islands.

I know of no place along the eastern coast where fur seals haul out on land, and I do not believe there is any outside of the Pribilof Islands. Fur seals do not give birth to their young in the water, neither will the pup seal live if born in the water. I can not say as to seals appearing off the coast in less numbers each year, but I think some arrangement should be made for their protection by a closed season during the time they are carrying and nursing their young.

Andrew Laing.

Levi W. Myers, United States Consul.

[Deposition of Charles Peterson, sealer (boat puller).]

pelagic sealing.

Province of British Columbia, City of Victoria, ss:

Charles Peterson, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I am 36 years old, and am by occupation a seafaring man; my residence is Victoria, British Columbia. In April, 1886, I went seal hunting from Victoria in the schooner Mountain Chief, Jacobson, master. Our schooner carried 10 canoes, each manned by 2 Indians, who hunted with spears. We began sealing off Cape Flattery and captured about 300 seals along the coast, most all of which were females and yearlings. We did not capture over 50 males, all told, on this voyage, and returned to Victoria in July.

In the spring of 1887 I went on a sealing voyage from Victoria as a boat puller in the schooner Alfred Adams, Dyre, master. She carried 1 stern boat and 2 Indian canoes. We had a white crew, but the canoes Were manned by 2 Indians each. We began sealing off Cape Flattery and sealed right up toward the Bering Sea, capturing 16 seals along the coast, all of which were females with pup. We entered the Bering Sea about the 15th of August through the Unimak Pass and captured therein 1,404 seals, most of which were cows in milk. On that voyage we caught female seals in milk over 80 miles from the rookeries, where they had left their young. Our best hunters would secure half of the seals shot, but the poorest ones would not get more than 1 out of 20, the average being 1 secured out of 5 killed.

I have seen the deck almost flooded with milk while we were skinning the seals. It is impossible to distinguish the male seal from the female when they are in the water at a reasonable gunshot distance. About 90 per cent of all the seals we captured in the water were female seals. After remaining in the sea about fifteen days our vessel was seized and we returned to Victoria.

In April, 1890, I went sealing in the Minnie, Jacobson, master. She carried 14 canoes, manned with Indians, 2 Indians with each canoe, who used spears. We caught 350 seals along the coast, all of which were females excepting 20. We returned to Victoria in June.

In January, 1891, I left Victoria on a sealing voyage in the schooner Minnie, Dillon, master. We carried 2 boats manned by white men and 10 canoes, each manned by 2 Indians, who used shotguns. We captured 250 female seals with pup on the coast and then returned to Victoria, after which we sailed again in a short time on the same vessel with the same crew for the North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea, capturing about 250 female seals while en route to the Bering Sea, also a few male yearlings. We entered the sea and secured about 10 seals, all of which were females in milk. After remaining there ten days we started back to Victoria.

[Page 152]

The practice of taking seals in the water before they have given birth to their young is destructive to seal life, wasteful, and should be prohibited. Seals do not haul out upon the land along the coast and give birth to their young; nor do they breed on the kelp. If ever there was such an occurrence it must have been a premature birth caused by some accident to the female seal, and would result in the death of her young.

Previous to 1885 only 2 or 3 sealing vessels had ever gone to the Bering Sea to hunt seals, and the sealing from Victoria prior to 1886 was confined to the coast, and the crews were Indians who hunted with spears. Seals were caught by them with spears and but few were lost; but since the shotgun has come into use a great many are destroyed and lost.

C. Peterson.

[seal.]
Levi W. Myers,
United States Consul.

[Deposition of Edwin P. Porter, sealer (boat steerer).]

pelagic sealing.

Dominion of Canada, Victoria, British Columbia, ss:

Edwin P. Porter, being duly sworn, deposes and says: My age is 25 years; residence, Victoria, British Columbia; occupation, seaman and seal hunter. I went out sealing as boat steerer on the British schooner Penelope, Captain Steel, master; I think it was in the year 1888 when I went in her. She had 5 boats and white hunters. They used shotguns and rifles—shotguns chiefly. We left Victoria about the last of January and cruised along the California and Oregon coast and caught about 1,000 seals before we entered Bering Sea. We entered the sea about the first week in July and caught about 1,100 more. We left the sea about the latter part of September. We caught some off the Copper Island, but most of them were taken from 30 to 100 miles south and southwest of the Pribilof Islands.

In 1889 I went as boat steerer on the British schooner Ariel, Captain Rucknam, master. She had 6 boats and 4 canoes. Carried both white and Indian hunters. White hunters used shotguns and rifles. Indians used spears chiefly. We left Victoria in February and sealed over about the same course as the year before and entered the Bering Sea in July. We took about 500 skins before entering the sea and caught about 1,600 more around the southwest bank, from 30 to 75 miles from St. Paul Island. We were ordered out of the sea about the 1st of September by the revenue cutter Rush.

In 1890 I did not go sealing.

In 1891 I sailed as boat steerer in the British schooner Umbrina, Captain Campbell, master. She carried 7 boats and had white hunters, who used shotguns and rifles. Left Victoria in March and sealed along the coast. I left her before she went into the sea. Her whole season’s catch was about 900, but do not know what portion of them she caught before entering Bering Sea. This year I went as boat steerer in the British steamer Thistle. She had 6 sealing boats and 2 whaling boats and carried white hunters, with shotguns and rifles. She left Victoria in February and sealed off the California coast. I left her in March. She had only 79 skins.

My experience in four years’ sealing is that nearly all the seals taken along the coast are pregnant females, and it is seldom that one of them is caught that has not a young pup in her. In the fore part of the season the pup is small, but in May and June when they are taken off the Queen Charlotte and Kadiac Islands the unborn pup is quite large, and we frequently take them out of the mothers alive. I have kept some of them alive for six weeks that were cut out of their mothers by feeding them on condensed milk. The seals we captured in Bering Sea were fully 80 per cent females that had given birth to their young. A fact that I often noticed was that their teats would be full of milk when I skinned them, and I have seen them killed from 20 to 100 miles from the Seal Islands. We try to kill the seal while sleeping on the water, but also shoot at them when they are breaching.

An ordinary hunter will lose about 4 out of every 6 he kills. Some do not do near as well, while others do better. The percentage of loss to those killed is less on the coast than it is in the Bering Sea, for the seals are more fat and do not sink as quick, but a great many are wounded and lost. The Indians, when they use the spears, lose but very few. They get up close to the sleeper and scarcely ever miss getting it. I [Page 153] know of no place on the coast where seals come up to land, and I am positive there is none. Seals are not near as plentiful as when I went out in 1888, and I believe the decrease is due to their being hunted so much with shotguns and rifles.

Edwin P. Porter.

[seal.]
Levi W. Myers,
United States Consul.

[Extract from deposition of William Brennan, sealer (sailing master, boat steerer).]

pelagic sealing.

* * * * * * *

The cow is 3 years old before she bears young. The pups are about 45 days old before they can go into the water, but they nurse the mother as long as they stay on the island. They are called “black” and “gray” pups—black before they shed their first coat and gray afterwards. As they grow older the gray turns darker, except upon the neck and head, but the color of the hair does not affect the fur, which can be seen by parting it.

* * * * * * *

William Brennan.
[seal.]
D. A. McKenzie,
Notary Public.

[Extract from deposition of Theodore T. Williams, journalist, sent out by lessees to investigate pelagic sealing.]

pelagic sealing.

* * * * * * *

In the list of skins offered for sale in the London market there appears the classification “black pups.” These are the skins of unborn seals torn from the wombs of their dead mothers. It is not a pleasant picture, but it can not be avoided.

* * * * * * *

T. T. Williams.

United States of America,
State of California, City and County of San Francisco, ss:

I, Clement Bennett, a notary public in and for said city and county, residing therein, duly commissioned and sworn, do certify that on this 4th day of April, A. D. one thousand eight hundred and ninety-two, I carefully compared the foregoing copy of a report of T. T. Williams with the original thereof now in the possession of the Alaska Commercial Company, of San Francisco, California, and that the same is a full, true, and correct transcript therefrom and of the whole of said original report.


[seal.]
Clement Bennett, Notary Public.

[Deposition of Herman Liebes, furrier, San Francisco.]

general seal-skin industry and pelagic sealing.

City and County of New York, ss:

Herman Liebes, being duly sworn, says:

First. That he is 50 years of age and resides in the city of San Francisco, Cal. That he has been in the fur business since he was 13 years of age, and established in his own business in San Francisco in the year 1864. That he first began to buy seal [Page 154] skins in the year 1865. At that time he made his purchases from the Indians on the western coast of the American continent, who offered to him only the skins of female seals; that the price he originally paid for them was as low as 50 cents per skin; that he offered the Indians a much higher price for male skins, and was told by them that the male seals could not be caught, and that many Indians whom he has personally seen kill seals, and from whom he has bought skins, have told him that male seals and the young cows were too active to be caught, and that it was only the female seals heavy with young which they could catch. The males, for instance, as deponent was told by the seal hunters, come up to the surface of the water after diving, often as much as a mile from the place they went down; whereas the females can, when pregnant, hardly dive at all.

Deponent says that from his own observation of live seals during many years, and from his personal inspection of the skins, he knows the difference between the skin of a female seal and a male seal to be very marked, and that the two are easily distinguishable. The skin of the female seal shows the marks of the breast, about which there is no fur. The belly of the female seal is barren of fur also, whereas on the male the fur is thick and evenly distributed. The female seal has a much narrower head than the male seal, and this difference is apparent in the skins; also that the differences between the male and female skins are so marked that there is now and always has been a difference in the price of the two of from 300 to 500 per cent—for example, at the last sales in London, on the 22d day of January, 1892, there were sold 30,000 female skins at a price of 40 shillings apiece, and 13,000 male seals at a price of 130 shillings apiece on an average.

Second. That from the year 1864 down to the present day deponent or his firm have been large purchasers of seal skins on the western coast of America from the Indians and residents on the British coast; and deponent believes that he has handled nearly three-fourths of the catch from that time down to the present. That during the whole of this period he has purchased from 3,000 to 40,000 seal skins a year, and that he has personally inspected and physically handled the most of the skins so bought by him or his firm.

That from the year 1880 he has been in the habit of buying skins from American and English vessels engaged in what is now known as poaching, and that he has personally inspected every cargo bought and seen unloaded from the poaching vessels, and subsequently seen and superintended the unpacking of the same in his own warehouse; that the most of the skins above mentioned as purchased by him have been bought from the poaching vessels, and that of the skins so bought from the vessels known as poachers, deponent says that at least 90 per cent of the total number of skins were those of female seals, and that the skins of male seals found among those cargoes were the skins of very small animals, not exceeding 2 years of age, and further, that the age of the seal may be told accurately from the size of its skin.

Third. That the, skins bought at Victoria from the poaching vessels are shipped by him largely to the firm of C. M. Lampson & Co., in London, who are the largest sellers of skins in the world and the agents of deponent’s firm. That he has been through the establishment of C. H. Lampson & Co. in London very frequently. That he has frequently heard stated by the superintendent thereof that the great majority of the skins received by them from what is called the “Northwest catch,” that is, the northwest coast of Victoria, are the skins of seals caught by vessels in the open Pacific or the Bering Sea, and that a large proportion of said skins, amounting to at least 90 per cent, were in his, the said superintendent’s, judgment obviously the skins of female seals.

Fourth. That deponent has frequently requested the captains of the poaching vessels sailing from the port of Victoria and other ports to obtain the skins of male seals, and stated that he would give twice as much money, or even more, for such skins than he would pay for the skins of female seals. Each and all of the captains so approached laughed at the idea of catching male seals in the open sea, and said that it was impossible for them to do it, and that they could not catch male seals unless they could get upon the islands, which, except once in a long while, they were unable to do in consequence of the restrictions imposed by the United States Government; because they said the males were more active and could outswim any boat which their several vessels had, and that it was only the female seals who were heavy with young which could be caught. Among the captains of vessels with whom deponent has talked, and who have stated to him that they were unable to catch anything but female seals, are the following:

Captain Cathcart, an American, now about 75 years of age, who commanded the schooner San Diego, and who subsequently commanded other vessels; Capt. Harry Harmson, Capt. George W. Littlejohn, Capt. A. Carlson, Gustav Sundvall, and others whose names he does not now remember.

[Page 155]

Fifth. That by reason of his long acquaintance with the business and his conversations with the captains of the vessels called poachers, and the hunters employed on those vessels—that is, the persons who actually shoot the seals—deponent is satisfied that a large number of the seals which are shot are not caught, but are lost, and that the number so killed and lost is at least 25 to 30 per cent.

Deponent further says that by reason of his knowledge of the business he knows that the number of seals has greatly diminished within the last five years, and he is of the opinion that open-sea seal fishing should be absolutely prohibited, and that if the same is not done the seals will within two, or at the utmost three, years be exterminated. This opinion is based upon the assumption that the present restriction imposed by the United States and Russia on the number, age, and sex of the seals killed upon the islands owned by them respectively are to be maintained.

Deponent is further of the opinion that it would be necessary, in order to fully protect the herds, to prohibit, at least for a time, the killing of all female seals anywhere. That one reason for deponent’s opinion that the total number of seals in the Pacific and Bering Sea has diminished very rapidly is the fact—which deponent knows from the fact that he buys so large a portion of the poachers’ catch—that there are now engaged on what is called “poaching” about 80 vessels, and that about five years ago not more than 10 vessels were engaged in poaching; and that the total number of skins brought in by the whole 80 vessels is now not very much greater than the number brought in five years ago by 10 vessels. The poaching vessels a few years ago have been known to get as many as 3,000 or 4,000 skins, and deponent has bought 4,000 skins from one vessel, whereas no poaching vessel now gets more than a few hundred with the same size crew. One vessel last year sailing from Victoria made a catch of 1,900 skins, but this is now an altogether exceptional catch, and this vessel had a crew twice as large as poaching vessels formerly carried, and was equipped with from 12 to 15 boats instead of 5 or 6. One or two other poaching vessels also made large catches—that is, over 1,200 skins—but the average catch of the poaching vessels is not more than a few hundred each. This is true, although the poaching vessels are now equipped with much more experienced shooters, with better rifles, and with better boats than any of the vessels had five years ago. Many of the poaching vessels now have boats pointed at both ends, so that they can go backward or forward with equal ease; and the old poacher only had ordinary ships’ boats. Deponent knows this to be true, because he has seen the boats and talked with the captains of the schooners about them.

Herman Liebes.

[seal.]
Edwin T. Rice, jr.,
Notary Public, New York County.

[Deposition of John J. Phelan, furrier.]

pelagic sealing.

State of New York,
City and County of New York, ss:

John J. Phelan, being duly sworn, says: I am 35 years of age, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of Albany, in the State of New York. At the age of 11 I entered the service of Mr. George C. Treadwell, a wholesale furrier of Albany. I remained with him until the time of his death, and have since been in the employ of his son, Mr. George H. Treadwell, who has succeeded to the business carried on by his father. It has always been a part of my occupation, beginning with the age of 11, to handle fur-seal skins, and during the last twenty years I have handled nearly every seal skin that came into the factory. I have for many years been in the habit of putting them through every process connected with their preparation for manufacture, except that of dyeing, with which I am not familiar. I have removed the flesh and blubber; I have washed the skins; removed the hair, or “picked” them, shaved them, and dressed them; and in this way I have constantly gone over and closely observed every part of their surfaces in all the stages or processes through which they pass before they go to the dyer.

As a result of the work I have performed for so many years, I am able to distinguish, without difficulty, the skin of a female seal from that of a male seal. There are generally several ways in which I can tell them apart. One of the surest ways consists in seeing whether any teats can be found. On a female skin above the age of two years teats can practically always be discovered; when the animal is over three years old, even a person who is not an expert at handling skins can discover two prominent ones on each side of almost every skin. This is because after the age of [Page 156] three, and often even after two, almost all females have been in pup. There are also teats on a male skin, but they are only very slightly developed. When the fur is matted, as it is in salted fur-seal skins, the male teats can not be found, but the female teats of skins more than two years old can be found under all circumstances.

I have been able to test all my observations as to the teats on salted fur-seal skins by following these skins through the various processes which I have described. During these processes the skins become thinner and thinner, and the teats more and more noticeable, and at an early stage in the dressing they must be wholly removed. There are other ways of distinguishing the skins of the two sexes. I will state a few of them.

A female seal has a narrower head than a male seal. By the word “head” I mean here to include the part of the body from the head down to the middle of the back. I believe all men who have handled the skins of both sexes have noticed this point.

Then, again, when the whiskers have not been cut off, they generally afford a safe means of distinguishing the sexes. Male whiskers are much more brittle and of a darker color than those of the female animal. When the male seal is over six years old it begins to have a mane, and for this reason it is after that age called a wig.

Finally, it is generally possible for me to tell the skins of the two sexes apart by just taking a look at them or feeling them. I suppose I can do this because I have been at the business so long that I am an expert in it.

The chief classes of seal skins which I have handled are the Alaska, the Northwest coast, and the Copper Island skins. I can always distinguish the skins of these classes. The Northwest coast skins are most easily told by the very great proportion of females contained in any given lot. Among the Alaska and Copper skins I have hardly ever seen a female skin.

While the Alaska and Northwest coast skins are taken from the same species or herd of seals, I am convinced that the Copper skins are taken from seals of a different herd. I have noticed the difference in the skins, both in their raw state and during the processes of dressing. The hair of the Copper skin is shorter, thinner, and generally of a somewhat darker color than that of the Alaska or Northwest coast skins, and in most cases the difference in shape is sufficiently marked to enable me to distinguish them by that means alone.

The difference between the Copper and the other skins is still more marked during the processes of dressing. It is very much more difficult to unhair a Copper skin. Furthermore, the pelts of the Copper skins are less porous than those of the other skins. While preparing skins for dressing it is necessary to “work” them and open the pores in order to “leather” them, and it is during this process that I have noticed the fact that Copper skins are much less porous than the others. The pelt being harder and stiffer and the hair more brittle, we can hardly ever unhair a Copper skin as satisfactorily as we can the other skins.

I was sent to New York from Albany a few days ago by Mr. George H. Tread well, with instructions to go through a certain lot of seal skins, which I understand he had recently bought in Victoria, and to find out how many of these skins were taken from female animals. I have spent four days in doing this, working about seven hours a day.

There were several men who unpacked the skins and laid them before me, so that all of my time was spent in examining the individual skins. The lot contained 3,550 skins. I found that, with the possible exception of two dried ones, they were taken from animals this year; they were a part of what is known as the spring catch. I know this to be the case by the fresh appearance of the blubber and of the skin as a whole. This affords a sure way of telling whether the skin has lain in salt all winter, or whether it has been recently salted. I personally inspected each one of these skins by itself and kept an accurate record of the result. I divided the skins according to the three following classes: Males, females, and pups. In the class of pups I placed only the skins of animals less than two years of age, but without reference to sex.

I found in the lot 395 males, 2,167 females, and 988 pups. Leaving out of account the pups, the percentage of females was therefore about 82.

The great majority of what I classed as male skins were taken from animals less than three years of age. There was not a single wig in the lot. On the other hand, nearly all of the female skins were those of full-grown animals. On every skin which I classed among the females I found teats with bare spots about them on the fur side. Such bare spots make it absolutely certain that these teats were those of female skins.

With regard to the pup skins, I will say that I did not undertake to determine whether they were males or females, because they had a thick coat of blubber, which, in the case of an animal less than two years old, makes it very hard to tell the sex.

[Page 157]

All of the skins that I examined were either shot or speared. I did not keep a close count, but I am of the opinion that about 75 per cent of them were shot.

The result of the examination is about what I had expected it would be. The figures only confirm what I have always noticed in a general way, that nearly ninetenths of the skins in any shipment of Northwest coast skins are those of female animals.

John J. Phelan.

[Seal.]
Willis Van Valkenburg,
Notary Public, Kings County.

(Certificate filed in New York County.)

[Deposition of Henry Treadwell, member of the firm of Treadwell & Co., furriers.]

general seal-skin industry—pelagic sealing.

City and County of New York, ss:

Henry Treadwell, being duly sworn, says that he is a citizen of the United; States, is 70 years of age, and resides in the city of Brooklyn, in the State of New York.

  • First. That he is a member of the firm of Treadwell & Co, which has been engaged in the business of buying, dressing, and dealing in furs since about the year 1832. That for the twenty years last past deponent’s said firm have bought on their own account, dressed and dyed, annually from 5,000 to 8,000 seal skins.
  • Second. That nearly all of the skins purchased by deponent’s said firm are bought of C. M. Lampson & Co., of London, who are the largest dealers in seal skins in the world. That the majority of the skins bought by said firm are a part of the skins known as the “Alaska” catch, that is, as deponent is informed and believes, the skins of seals killed on the Pribilof Islands by the companies having leases from the United States for that purpose. A certain number of skins bought by deponent’s firm are those killed upon the Russian, called the Commander Islands, known as the Copper catch, and about 30 per cent of the whole number of seal skins bought by deponent’s firm are what are called the Northwest coast skins—the skins of animals killed and caught in the open sea.
  • Third. That the skins of each of the several catches are readily distinguishable from each other by any person at all experienced in the handling of seal skins; and the skins of the Northwest, Alaska, or Copper catch, are none of them found except under those titles, that is to say, that skins of the “Copper” catch are not found among the “Alaska” seal skins, nor those of the Northwest catch among the Alaska for Copper seal skins. The skins of the three catches are so readily distinguishable from each other that deponent says he would be able, on the examination of the skins as they are taken from the barrels in which they are packed in salt and received by him, to detect at once in a barrel of Alaska skins, the skins of either the Copper or the Northwest catch; or in a barrel of the Northwest catch the skins of either the Alaska or the Copper catch, or in a barrel of the Copper catch the skins of either the Alaska or Northwest catch. The skins of the Alaska and Copper catches are readily distinguishable from each other, although male skins; and the skins of the Northwest catch are also readily distinguishable from both the Copper and Alaska by the act that they are almost all females, and all have marks of bullets, buckshot, or spears, showing that they have been killed at sea, although the Northwest catch belong to the Pribilof Island herd.
  • Fourth. That the skins of the Northwest catch are, deponent would say, at least nine-tenths of them, skins of female seals. The skins of the female seals are as readily distinguishable, before being dressed and dyed, from the skins of male seals as the skin of a bitch and the skin of a dog, or the skin of any other female animal from that of the male of the same family. The females always have narrower heads than the males, and the breasts afford another ready means of identification of female seals.
  • Fifth. It is equally true that the skins of all the other catches which we had in prior years were readily distinguishable from each other. I have not seen the seals in their native rookeries, and can not speak as to the distinguishing traits of the live animals, but in the trade and in the experience of our firm we have always been able to distinguish readily the skins coming from one locality from the skins coming from another. I remember upon one occasion my firm received a consignment of skins from London which bore no marks familiar to us and which skins had not been described to us, and that my brother, who was then at the head of the business, [Page 158] and who is now dead, said, after inspecting the said skins, that they reminded him very much of what were formerly called “south latitude skins,” and particularly of some skins which he had had twenty-odd years before from Santa Barbara, in California; and upon inquiry from the Messrs. Lampson & Co., we were informed by them that the said skins were the skins of seals killed at Santa Barbara.
Henry Treadwell.

[seal.]
Willard Parker Butler,
Notary Public, City and County of New York.

[Deposition of Alfred Fraser, member of firm of C. M. Lampson & Co., furriers, London.]

general seal-skin industry.

State of New York, City and County of New York, ss:

Alfred Fraser, being duly sworn, says:

First. That he is a subject of Her Britannic Majesty, and is 52 years of age, and resides in the city of Brooklyn, in the State of New York. That he is a member of the firm of C. M. Lampson & Co., of London, and has been a member of said firm for about thirteen years; prior to that time he was in the employ of said firm and took an active part in the management of the business of said firm in London. That the business of C. M. Lampson & Co. is that of merchants, engaged principally in the business of selling fur skins on commission. That for about twenty-four years the firm of C. M. Lampson & Co. have sold the great majority of the whole number of seal skins sold in all the markets of the world. That while he was engaged in the management of the business of said firm in London he had personal knowledge of the character of the various seal skins sold by the said firm from his personal inspection of the same in their warehouse and from the physical handling of the same by him. That many hundred thousands of the skins sold by C. M. Lampson & Co. have physically passed through his hands; and that since his residence in this country he has, as a member of said firm, had a general and detailed knowledge of the character and extent of the business of said firm, although since his residence in the city of New York he has not physically handled the skins disposed of by his firm.

That during the last year or two a large number of skins have been sold in London by the firm of Culverwell, Brooks & Co., and that said firm, as deponent is informed and believes, have secured the consignment of skins to them during the period aforesaid by advancing to the owners of vessels engaged in what is now known as pelagic sealing sums of money, which is stated to be $15 per skin, as against shipments from Victoria of such skins.

Second. That the seal skins which have been sold in London from time to time since deponent first began business have been obtained from sources and were known in the markets as—

(A) The South Sea skins, being the skins of seals principally caught on the South Shetland Islands, South Georgia Islands, and Sandwich Land. That many years ago large numbers of seals were caught upon these islands, but in consequence of the fact that no restrictions were imposed on the killing of said seals they were practically exterminated and no seal skins appeared in the market from those localities for many years. That about twenty years ago these islands were again visited, and for five seasons a considerable catch was made, amounting during the whole five seasons to about 30,000 or 40,000 skins. Among the skins found in this catch were those of the oldest males and the smallest pups, thus showing, in the judgment of deponent, that every seal of every kind was killed that could be reached. That in consequence thereof the rookeries on these islands were then completely exhausted. One or twice thereafter they were visited without result, no seals being found, and about five years ago they were revisited and only 36 skins were obtained. Deponent is informed that all the South Sea skins were obtained by killing seals upon the islands above mentioned, and that it is obviously everywhere much easier to kill seals upon the land than in the water; and in the judgment of the deponent the seals of the above-mentioned islands were thus entirely exterminated because of the entire absence of any protection or of any restriction of any kind whatever upon the number, age, or sex of seals killed, and not merely, as deponent understands has been claimed by some authorities, because they were killed on land instead of in the open sea, which, moreover, in that locality, deponent is informed, is practically impossible by reason of the roughness of the sea and weather.

[Page 159]

(B) A considerable number of seal skins were formerly obtained upon the Falkland Islands; how many deponent is not able to state.

(C) That a certain number of seals were also caught at Cape Horn, and that more or less are still taken in that vicinity, though the whole number has been very greatly reduced.

(D) That at the present time and for many years last past the skins coming to the market and which are known to commerce have come from the following sources:

1. And by far the most important are the Northern Pacific skins, which are known to the trade under the following titles:

The “Alaska” catch, which are the skins of seals caught on the Pribilof Islands, situated in Bering Sea. For many years past the whole of the skins caught upon these islands have been sold by deponent’s firm, and a statement of the number of skins so sold in each year is appended hereto and marked “Exhibit A,” showing the aggregate of such skins sold from the year 1870 to the year 1891, inclusive, as 1,877,977.

The “Copper” catch, being the skins of seals caught upon what are known as the Commander Islands, being the islands known as the Copper and Bering Islands. All the skins so caught have been sold by the deponent’s firm in the city of London, and the total number of such “Copper” catch from the years 1872 to 1892 appears upon the statement which is hereto annexed and marked “Exhibit B,” showing the total so sold during such years of 768,096 skins.

The “Northwest” catch, being the skins of seals caught in the open sea either of the Pacific Ocean or of the Bering Sea. These skins were originally caught exclusively by the Indians and by residents of the colony of Victoria and along the coast of the British possessions. A statement of the total number of the catch from the year 1868 to 1884, inclusive, is appended hereto and marked “Exhibit C,” showing a total of 153,348. That statement is divided into three heads: First, the salted “Northwest” coast skins; second, the dried “Northwest” coast skins, both of which were mainly sold through deponent’s firm in London, and third, salted “Northwest” coast skins, dressed and dyed in London, but not sold there. It will be noticed that in the years 1871 and 1872 an unusuall y large proportion of dried skins appear to have been marketed. Those skins were purchased in this year from the Russian-American Company, which was the lessee of the Russian Government on the Pribilof Islands prior to the cession of Russian America to the United States. Those skins had been accumulated by the Russian Company and sold when the Americans took possession. For the years 1871 and 1872, therefore, the surplus skins over the average for the other years should be rejected in a computation of the general average of seals killed during the years from 1868 to 1884, inclusive.

From the year 1885 to the year 1891 the number of skins included in the “Northwest” catch enormously increased, and a statement of such skins is hereto annexed and marked “Exhibit D,” showing a total of 331,962, and is divided, like the statement marked “Exhibit C,” into three heads: The salted “Northwest” coast skins, the dry “Northwest” coast skins, and the salted skins dressed and dyed in London, but not sold there. The majority of the first two classes were, as in the previous case, sold by deponent’s firm. The great majority of these skins appearing in the last mentioned statement are the skins caught by the vessels sent out from the Canadian Provinces, many also by vessels sent out from San Francisco, Port Townsend, and Seattle, and a few from vessels sent Out from Yokohama. The majority, however, are supposed to have been caught by vessels sent out from British harbors. A large number of the skins included in “Exhibit D” have been consigned to C. M. Lampson & Co. by the firm of Herman, Liebes & Co., of San Francisco. In estimating the total number of the “Northwest” catch it should also be mentioned that something like 30,000 skins belonging to that catch have been dressed and dyed in the United States which have not gone to London at all.

(E) Besides the “Alaska,” “Copper,” and “Northwest” skins, there are also a certain number of skins arriving in London known as the Lobos Island skins, although the same are not handled by the firm of C. M. Lampson & Co.; but the total number of which, from the year 1882 to the year 1891, inclusive, is, as appears from the catalogues of sales, 247,777. The Lobos Island skins are those of seals killed on the Lobos Island, belonging to the Republic of Uruguay; and deponent is informed and believes that there is no open-sea sealing in the vicinity of such island and that the animals are protected on the island as they are on the Russian and Pribilof Islands, by prohibition from the killing of females and limiting the number of males killed in each year. A statement of the seals killed on Lobos Island is hereto annexed and marked “Exhibit E,” from which it appears that there is a regular annual supply obtained from that source, which shows no diminution.

[Page 160]

(F) There are also a certain number of skins sold in London, obtained from rookeries at or near the Cape of Good Hope, the exact number of which deponent is not able to state, but which he is informed shows a steady yield.

The statements marked A, B, C, D, and E, hereunto appended, have been carefully prepared by me personally, and the figures therein stated have been compiled by me from the several sale catalogues of C. M. Lampson & Co., and others from my private books which I had kept during all the years covered by the statements, and I am sure that those statements are substantially accurate and truly state the respective numbers of the skins caught and sold which they purport to state.

Third. The great majority of the skins sold from the “Northwest” catch are the skins of female seals. Deponent is notable to state exactly what proportion of such skins are the skins of females, but estimates it to be at least 85 per cent; and the skins of females are readily distinguishable from those of the males by reason of the fact that on the breast and on the belly of the bearing female there is comparatively little fur, whereas on the skins of the male seals the fur is evenly distributed; and also by reason of the fact that the female seal has a narrow head and the male seal a broad head and neck; and the skins of this catch are also distinguishable from the “Alaska” and “Copper” catch, by reason of the fact that the seals are killed by bullets or buckshot, or speared, and not, as on the Pribilof and Commander Islands, by clubs. Marks of such bullets, or buckshot, or spears are clearly discernible in the skins, and there is a marked difference in the commercial value of the female skins and of the male skins. This fact, that the “Northwest” skins are so largely the skins of females, is further evidenced by the fact that in many of the early sales of such skins they are classified in deponent’s book as the skins of “females.”

Fourth. Deponent further says that in his judgment the absolute prohibition of pelagic sealing, i. e., the killing of seals in the open sea, whether in the North Pacific or the Bering Sea, is necessary to the preservation of the seal herds now surviving, by reason of the fact that most of the females so killed are heavy with young, and that necessarily the increase of the species is diminished by their killing. And, further, from the fact that a large number of females are killed in the Bering Sea while on the search for food after the birth of their young, and that in consequence thereof the pups die for want of nourishment. Deponent has no personal knowledge of the truth of this statement, but he has information in respect of the same from persons who have been on the Pribilof Islands, and he believes the same to be true. Deponent further says that this opinion is based upon the assumption that the present restriction imposed by Russia and the United States on the killing of seals in their respective islands are to be maintained, otherwise it would be necessary to impose such restrictions, as well as to prohibit palagic sealing, in order to preserve the herds.

Fifth. Deponent is further of the opinion, from his long observation and handling of the skins of the several catches, that the skins of the Alaska and Copper catches are readily distinguishable from each other, and that the herds from which such skins are obtained do not, in fact, intermingle with each other, because the skins classified under the head of Copper catch are not found among the consignments of skins received from the Alaska catch, and vice versa.

Sixth. Deponent further says that the distinction between the skins of the several catches is so marked that, in his judgment, he would, for instance, have had no difficulty, had there been included among 100,000 skins in the Alaska catch 1,000 skins of the Copper catch, in distinguishing the 1,000 Copper skins and separating them from the 99,000 Alaska skins, or that any other person with equal or less experience in the handling of skins would be equally able to distinguish them. And in the same way deponent thinks from his own personal experience in handling skins that he would have no difficulty whatever in separating the skins of the northwest catch from the skins of the Alaska catch, by reason of the fact that they are the skins almost exclusively of females, and also that the fur upon the bearing female seals is much thinner than upon the skin of the male seals—the skin of the animal while pregnant being extended and the fur extended over a large area.

Seventh. Deponent says that the number of persons who are employed in the handling, dressing, dyeing, cutting, and manufacturing of seal skins in the city of London is about 2,000, many of whom are skilled laborers, earning as high as £3 or £4 a week. Deponent estimates the amount paid in the city of London for wages in the preparation of fur-seal skins for a manufacturer’s uses, and excluding the wages of manufacturers’ employees, prior to the beginning of the pelagic sealing in 1885, at about £100,000 per annum; and deponent further says that in his judgment, if this pelegic sealing be not prohibited it is a question of but a few years, probably not more than three, when the industry will cease by reason of the extermination of the [Page 161] seals in the same way in which they have been exterminated on the South Sea Islands by reason of no restrictions being imposed upon their killing.

Alfred Fraser.

Edwin T. Rice,
Notary Public, New York County.

[Deposition of Henry Poland, head of the firm of P. R. Poland & Son, furriers, London.]

general seal-skin industry—pelagic sealing.

Mr. Henry Poland, being duly sworn, doth depose and say: That he is 40 years of age and a subject of Her Britannic Majesty; that he is the head of the firm of P. R. Poland & Son, doing business at 110 Queen Victoria street, in the city of London, and has been engaged in that business twenty-one years; that the said firm of P. R. Poland & Son are doing business as fur and skin merchants, and have been engaged in that business for over one hundred years, having been founded by deponent’s great-grandfather in the year 1785, and having been continued without interruption since that date from father to son; that for many years last past deponent’s said firm have been in the habit of buying large numbers of fur-seal skins—in fact ever since skins of that character have become an article of commerce—both on their own account and on commission for other persons resident in the United States and Canada and elsewhere; that by reason of having purchased so many skins deponent has a general and substantial knowledge of the history of the fur-seal skin business, and of the character and kinds of fur-seal skins coming upon the London market; that from about the year 1879 down to the present time the principal fur-seal skins coming to the London market have, been what are known as the Alaska catch, being the skins of fur seals killed upon the Pribilof Islands, in the Bering Sea; the Copper Islands catch being the skins of fur seals killed upon the Kommandorski and Robben Islands, of Russia, and what are known as the Northwest catch. Until within two or three years ago a very considerable number of skins also arrived on the London market, amounting perhaps to several thousand annually, which were known as Japanese skins.

That the three classes of skins above mentioned are easily distinguishable from each other by any person skilled in the business or accustomed to handling skins in the raw state; that deponent has personally handled the samples of the skins dealt in by this firm, and would himself have no difficulty in distinguishing the skins of the Copper Island catch from the skins of the Alaska and Northwest catch by reason of the fact that in the raw state the Copper Island skins have a lighter color and the fur is rather shorter in pile and of an inferior quality. The skins of each of the three classes have different values and command different prices in the market. Both the Copper Island skins and the Alaska skins are almost exclusively the skins of male seals, and the difference between the skin of a male seal and a female seal of adult age can be as readily seen as between the skins of different sexes of other animals. That the Northwest skins are, in turn, distinguishable from the Copper Island and Alaska skins, first, by reason of the fact that a very large proportion of the adult skins are obviously the skins of female animals; second, because they are all pierced with the spear or harpoon or shot, in consequence of being killed in open sea, and not, as in the case of Copper Island and Alaska skins, being killed on land by clubs; third, because the Northwest skins are cured upon vessels by the crews of which they are killed, upon which there are not the same facilities for flaying or salting the skins as there are upon land, where the Copper and Alaska skins are flayed and salted.

The Japanese skins, which I think are now included in the Northwest catch, are distinguishable from the other skins of the Northwest catch by being yellower in color, having a much shorter pile, because they are salted with fine salt, and have plenty of blubber on the pelt. That the skins purchased by deponent’s firm are handed over by it to what are called dressers and dyers for the purpose of being dressed and dyed. The principal dressers and dyers of the city of London at the present time are C. W. Martin & Co. and George Rice, and skins are also dressed and dyed by other persons. The fur-seal business has attained very considerable dimensions in the city of London, large amounts of capital being invested therein, and probably in and about the city of London there are employed in the fur-seal skin business as many as 3,000 persons, most of whom are skilled hands, some of whom [Page 162] receive as high as £3 or £4 a week, and many if not most of whom have families dependent upon them for support. That the maintenance of this business necessarily depends upon the preservation of the seal herds frequenting the northern Pacific regions from being overtaken by the destruction which was the fate of the seals formerly found in large quantities in the South Atlantic and South Pacific Oceans.

That deponent is not in a position, by reason of possessing expert knowledge or personal acquaintance of killing seals, to pronounce a positive opinion as to what steps are necessary, if any, to accomplish this result, but he would suppose it reasonable to say that a close time, which should be universal in its application, for a specified period in each year, during which the killing of seals should be entirely prohibited, and the imposition of heavy penalties—say a fine of £1,000—for any violation of the regulations providing for such close time would be effective to preserve the herds referred to; and deponent would under any circumstances increase the zone around the islands containing the rookeries, within which sealing should be absolutely prohibited, to a distance of 50 miles in every direction from the shore.

Henry Poland.

Francis W. Frigout,
Vice and Deputy Consul-General of the United States of America at London, England.

[Deposition of William Charles Blatspiel Stamp, furrier, London.]

general seal-skin industry—pelagic sealing.

William Charles Blatspiel Stamp, being duly sworn, doth depose and say: That he is 51 years of age, and a subject of Her Britannic Majesty, and is engaged in business at 38 Knightrider street, London, E. C., as a fur and skin merchant; that he has been engaged in that business for upward of thirty years, and has been in the habit of purchasing fur-seal skins during the whole of the time that he has been in business; that he has personally handled many thousands of such fur-seal skins, and he has inspected the samples at practically every sale of fur skins made in London during the whole of the time he has been in business, and in consequence of these facts and of his knowledge of the fur-seal skin business he has a general and detailed knowledge of the history of the business of dealing in fur-seal skins in the city of London, and of the character and differences which distinguish the several kinds of skins coming on the market; that for many years last past the fur-seal skins coming On the London market have been known as, first, the Alaska catch, which are the skins of seals killed upon the Pribilof Islands, situated in the Bering Sea; second, the Copper Island catch, which are the skins of seals killed on the Kommandorski and Robben Islands in the Russian waters. The Robben Island skins were formerly separated from the Kommandorski Islands, and were of inferior quality, and it is only within the last eight or ten years that the Robben Island skins, which are inconsiderable in number, have been presumably mingled with the skins of seals caught on the Copper Islands and included in the term “Copper catch.” Third, the Northwest catch, which are skins of seals killed in the open Pacific or Bering Sea.

That the skins of these several catches are readily distinguished from each other, and the skins of the different sexes may be as readily distinguished from each other as the skins of the different sexes of any other animal. I should estimate the proportion of female-skins included within the Northwest catch at at least 75 per cent, and I should not be surprised nor feel inclined to contradict an estimate of upward of 90 per cent. My sorter, who actually handles the skins, estimates the number of female skins in the Northwest catch at 90 per cent.

One means of distinguishing the skins of the Northwest catch from those of the other catches is the fact that they are pierced with shot or spear holes, having been killed in the open sea, and not as in the case of the Copper and Alaska catches, killed upon land, with clubs.

The differences between the Copper and Alaska skins are difficult to describe so that they can be understood by any person who has no practical knowledge of furs, but to anyone skilled in the business there are apparent differences in color between the Copper and Alaska skins, and a difference in the length and qualities of the hairs which compose the fur, and there are also apparent slight differences in the shape of the skins.

[Page 163]

The differences between the skins of the three catches are so marked that they have always been expressed in the different prices obtained for the skins. I have attended the sales for many years, and am able to make this statement from my own knowledge. The average prices obtained at the sales of the last year’s catch, for instance, were as follows: For the Alaska skins, 125 shillings per skin; for the Copper skins, 68 shillings per skin, and for the Northwest skins, 53 shillings per skin.

That the skins purchased by the deponent are purchased on his own account and on account of others resident in Canada and the United States and the Continent, and he believes it is a fact that he is the largest commission merchant in the fur business.

That the skins so purchased are consigned to various dressers and dyers, the principal of whom are the firm of C. W. Martin & Sons and George Rice, and deponent himself is the landlord of a factory worked by Frederick Smith & Co., which is the oldest firm of dyers of fur-seal skins, and of late years they have also become dressers.

That the fur-seal skin business had become an important industry in the city of London in which a large amount of capital was invested and a large number of workmen employed, amounting, including the dressers, dyers, handlers, and persons employed in the manufactories of the furriers, to about 3,000. It is difficult to make any correct estimate of the number of people so employed, but deponent says that he has recently had occasion to look into the question in his capacity as master of the Skinners’ Company and he believes the above figures to be substantially correct.

That a large number of persons so employed are skilled laborers, and most of them have families dependent upon their labors for their support. The wages paid in some cases are as high as £3 or £4 a week, and perhaps the average wages of the whole number may be safely estimated at £1 per week. That many of these persons know no other business than that in which they are at present engaged.

That the continual existence of the fur-seal business is dependent, in deponent’s judgment, upon the preservation of the seal herds frequenting the Northern Pacific regions, and it is also a most important element in the industry that the supply of seal skins coming to the market each year should be regular and constant.

That deponent further says that some regulations are necessary for the preservation of the seal herds frequenting the Northern Pacific region, because it is a well-known fact that in the absence of any such regulations the seal herds which were formerly found in the South Atlantic and Pacific seas have been practically exterminated.

On the Lobos Island and in New Zealand governmental regulations exist, and I am told, although I know nothing about it, that regulations of some kind have been made in the colony of the Cape of Good Hope.

W. C. B. Stamp.

[seal.]
Francis W. Frigout,
Vice and Deputy Consul-General of the United States of America at London, England.

[Deposition of Emil Teichmann, furrier, London.]

general seal-skin industry.

Emil Teichmann, being duly sworn, doth depose as follows:

First. That he is 46 years of age, a native of the Kingdom of Wurttemberg, and is now a naturalized subject of Her Britannic Majesty.

That since the age of manhood he has been engaged in the fur business; that from 1866 to 1868, inclusive, he resided in America in that business, and since 1868 he has resided in England and done business in the city of London, and is now and has continually been during all these years engaged in one way or another in the fur business; that lie is now a member of the firm of C. M. Lampson & Co., and has been a member of such firm for the period of twelve years last past; that prior to the time he became a member of such firm and from the years 1873 to 1880 he was a member of the firm of Martin & Teichmann, who were then, and its successors, C. W. Martin & Sons, still are, the largest dressers and dyers of seal skins in the world.

That the firm of C. M. Lampson & Co., of which deponent has been as aforesaid for the last twelve years a member, are what is known as commission merchants [Page 164] engaged in the business of selling furs of various kinds and also in buying furs upon commission.

That the said firm of C. M. Lampson & Co., has, during the time that deponent has been a member thereof, handled a larger number of skins of the fur-seal than all the other firms in the world together, and deponent knows from inspection of the books of his said firm that for many years prior to the date when he became a member of the same they also handled during many years previously thereto a larger number of fur-seal skins than all the other firms in the world together.

That during the time deponent has been a member of the said firm he has personally handled many hundreds of thousands of fur-seal skins, and he has a detailed and expert knowledge of the various kinds of seal skins, and the several differences between them which enable the several sorts of seal skins to be distinguished from each other.

Second. Deponent says from his general knowledge of the business inspection of the catalogues of sales of C. M. Lampson & Co., and from the information derived from his predecessors in the firm, the chief of whom was the late Sir Curtis Lampson, who founded the house about sixty years ago, that fur-seal skins were formerly obtained in large numbers in the South Pacific and Atlantic seas, upon the San Juan Fernandez and Falkland islands, upon Sandwich Island, South Shetland Island, Desolation Island, Goughs Island, and Kerguelan and Massafuero islands, and at Cape Horn.

There were also in former years a considerable number of skins obtained from Russian possessions in the North Pacific Ocean through the medium of a Russian company, as hereinafter stated.

The history of the Southern Atlantic and Pacific seal business shows that at the localities above enumerated, and principally on South Shetland and the Kerguelan islands, there must have been very large numbers of seals. The principal market for the skins of such Southern Pacific and Atlantic seals was, as deponent is informed, found in the Chinese ports, and deponent has been informed and understands that in consequence of the indiscriminate and universal killing of seals in the localities above mentioned, where no restrictions of any kind were then or are imposed upon the killing of seals at any time without regard to age or sex, the seal rookeries in those localities were, after a few years of such killing, practically exhausted.

That about twenty years ago the South Shetland Islands were again visited, and for two or three years there were obtained from these islands a considerable number of skins, amounting in the aggregate to perhaps 50,000 skins. At the end of a three years’ catch of skins it was reported that the rookeries were again exhausted, and the islands were not again visited for several years, not until five years ago, when deponent understands that a vessel was sent to those islands by the firm of C. A. Williams & Co., of New London, United States of America, and that that vessel was only able to obtain 39 skins.

The time during which deponent has been in the business the skins from all of the above-mentioned localities have been practically infinitesimal in number.

Third. That for many years last past the skins of fur seals actually coming into the markets of the world have been derived from the following sources:

I.
The Lobos Islands shins, which are the skins of seals caught upon the islands of that name, situated off the river Platte and belonging to the Republic of Uruguay. These skins are consigned by the persons having the contract to take them with the Republic of Uruguay to Boulcher, Mortimer & Co., of London, by whom they are sold through Goad, Rigg & Co., and catalogues of the last-mentioned firm are published and have been inspected by deponent from time to time as published. The total number of skins derived from this source, as appears from an inspection of such catalogues, are during the years 1873 and 1892, inclusive, set forth accurately in the paper which is annexed hereto and marked “Exhibit A.”
II.
Cape Horn skins.—Prior to the year 1876 a small number of skins are supposed to have been obtained from this locality. They are not classified in our books or catalogues, nor in the books of any other persons or firms, so that they can not now, from examining the books and catalogues, be readily identified or separated from skins coming from other southern localities, but from the year 1876 down to the present time they have been so classified, and a large number have been sold by deponent’s firm. A statement of the skins obtained from Cape Horn is hereto appended and marked “Exhibit B.” The number of skins derived from this locality, as appears by that statement, fluctuated very largely in number, and I am informed that the reason for such fluctuation is that the seals from which the skins are obtained are killed mostly upon land, and that the weather in that part of the world is so severe that it is at times impossible to affect a landing upon or near the rookeries. So far as deponent knows, there is no protection of any kind for seals at Cape Horn [Page 165] other than that which is afforded by the difficulty of landing in order to kill the seals in consequence of the heavy weather.
III.
Cape of Good Hope.—From this locality a small but steady number of skins have been obtained during many years last past. These skins are not consigned to deponent’s firm, but to other persons in London whose catalogues are published, and have been examined from time to time by deponent; and deponent is informed and believes from such examination of catalogues that the number of skins obtained from this source have been for the last few years about 5,000 per annum.
Deponent understands that the seals from which these skins are obtained are likewise killed mostly upon land, and he is also informed that some regulations for the protection of seal life at the Cape of Good Hope by regulating the killing of seals in that colony of the Cape of Good Hope have been established by the government of the said colony, but what those regulations are, if any such exist, deponent is not in a position to state.
In addition to the supplies from the above-mentioned sources, from 1,000 to 2,000 skins are obtained annually in Australasia, which includes New Zealand.
IV.
The principal sources of supply for the market at the present time, and for many years last past, are the following:
(a)
What are known as the Alaska catch, which are the skins of male seals, killed upon St. Paul and St. George islands in the Bering Sea.
(b)
The Copper catch which come from the seals killed upon the Russian islands of Copper and Bering, called the Commander Islands, which are located in the Russian part of Bering Sea, and also the Robben Island, in the Okhotsk Sea, all of which are also the skins of male seals.
(c)
The Northwest catch. These are the skins of seals caught in the open North Pacific and Bering Sea.

Fourth. The history of the seal-skin fishery coming from the Northern Pacific regions is briefly as follows:

In the early part of the century a Russian company was formed which obtained from the Russian Government a right to kill seals, both upon the Commander and Pribilof islands, and in and around the Bering Sea. Up to the year 1853 about 20,000 skins were annually received in London from the company in the parchment state. By the parchment state, I mean skins which were dried with the top or water hair left on. They were not, in consequence of this method of preservation by drying, in a condition to be unhaired, and they were after having been dressed in London largely returned to the Russian markets.

In the year 1853 a trial shipment of salted skins was made to J. M. Oppenheim & Co., in London, in pursuance, as deponent is informed, of suggestions theretofore sent out by Messrs. Oppenheim that an attempt should be made to salt the skins, but owing to the defective curing this shipment was a failure. By degrees, however, the curing by means of salting was improved, and in 1858 a contract was made by the Russian-American Company to ship to Messrs. J. M. Oppenheim & Co. an annual supply of from 10,000 to 12,000 skins delivered in London at 10s. 10d. a skin. The quantity was increased in 1864 to 20,000 skins. This contract remained in force until the Alaska Territory became the property of the United States. In addition to the salted skins covered by the contract last referred to, Messrs. Oppenheim & Co. also received during these years about 10,000 skins from the Russian-American Company per annum, which were dried in the old-fashioned way and not salted.

Deponent was connected with the firm of Messrs. J. M. Oppenheim & Co., at New York and London, from the years 1866 to 1872, inclusive, and his late partner, Mr. Martin, and himself ultimately succeeded to the business of Messrs. J. M. Oppenheim, so far as it related to the dressing and dyeing of seal skins.

Upon the cession of Alaska to the United States there was indiscriminate seal killing upon the Pribilof Islands for the season of 1869–1870. About the end of that season the Alaska Commercial Company was formed at San Francisco, as deponent is informed, by citizens of the United States, for the purpose of obtaining a lease from the United States of the right to kill seals on the Pribilof Islands.

This company did obtain from the United States an exclusive license to kill seals on the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea for a period of twenty years, under certain restrictions and regulations, which were, as deponent is informed, set forth in the contract between that company and the United States, and in extracts of Congress in relation thereto, and in regulations of the Treasury Department of the United States made in pursuance of such extracts of Congress.

A year ar two thereafter Messrs. Hutchinson, Kohl, Philippeus & Co., of San Francisco, which, as deponent is, informed, was a firm formed by persons controlling the Alaska Commercial Company, obtained a lease from the Russian Government giving them the exclusive right to kill seals upon Komandorski and Robben Islands.

[Page 166]

That in 1890 the Alaska Commercial Company, as deponent was informed, did not secure a renewal of the lease which they had theretofore enjoyed from the United States, but a similar lease was granted by the United States to the North American Commercial Company, which is a separate corporation, and is controlled by different people from the Alaska Commercial Company.

Fifth. From the year 1870 down to the present time deponent’s firm have received and handled from the Alaska Commercial Company and from Messrs. Hutchinson, Kohl, Philippeus & Co., from the North American Commercial Company, and the Russian Sealskin Company, of St. Petersburg, which company have now succeeded to the lease of the Komandorski and Robben Islands formerly enjoyed by Hutchinson, Kohl, Philippeus & Co., all the skins of seals which have been killed upon the Pribilof Islands and upon the Copper Islands. They have also received at least threefourths of the skins included in what is called the Northwest catch until the year 1891, when the major part of the skins of, the catch were consigned to Messrs. Culverwell, Brooks & Co., of London. A large number of the skins of this catch, amounting in one year to 40,000, have been consigned to deponent’s firm by the firm Hermann Liebes & Co., of San Francisco.

The total number of skins of the Northwest catch received by deponent’s firm during the years 1872 and 1892, inclusive, are set forth with accuracy in an affidavit made by my partner, Alfred Fraser, in New York, a copy of which, dated April 1, and acknowledged, E. T. Rice, notary public, has been received by me from him, and I annex hereto a copy of the lists of Northwest skins attached to Mr. Fraser’s affidavit, making the same a part of this deposition, and mark the same Exhibit C. I also append hereto as a part of this deposition copies of the lists attached to the affidavits of Mr. Fraser of Alaska skins sold in London by my firm during the years 1870 to 1892, inclusive, and to the Copper Island skins sold by my firm in London during the years 1872 to 1892, inclusive, and mark the same, respectively, Exhibits D and E, and I refer to the affidavit of Mr. Fraser, above mentioned, for an explanation of all said lists and adopt the same explanation given by him as my own. I have carefully verified the figures contained in these latter and find them to be as accurate as any such statement can be made.

Sixth. The skins of the Alaska and Copper catches are readily distinguished from each other and command different prices in the market, and I should have no difficulty and would undertake from my knowledge of the various skins to separate Copper skins from Alaska skins should they ever be found mingled together, as, however, they are not. The Alaska and Copper skins are distinguishable from each other partly by means of the different color. The Copper Island skins generally have a darker top hair and are more yellow on the cheeks than the Alaska skins. Perhaps a surer means of distinguishing the two is the difference in shape. The Copper Island skins are much narrower at the head than the Alaska skins, and this difference is very marked. In our warehouses we have a different set of frames for the sizing out of the Copper skins from those we use for the Alaska skins. Another difference quite as important as the shape is that the fur upon Copper Island skins is considerably shorter on the flanks and toward the tail than is the fur of the Alaska skins. All of these differences are so marked, as I have before stated, as to enable any expert or one familiar with the handling of skins to readily distinguish Copper from Alaska skins, or vice versa; but it is true in the case of very young animals the differences are much less marked than in the case of the adult animal. We receive practically no skins of very young animals from Alaska; but we do receive at times a certain number of the skins of the young animals from Copper. All the skins of both the Copper and Alaska catches are the skins of the male animals.

Seventh. The skins of the Northwest catch are in turn readily distinguishable from the skins of the Alaska as well as the Copper catch. The differences which I have enumerated between the Copper and Alaska skins are accentuated in distinguishing the skins of the Northwest catch from the skins of the Copper catches, and we use a separate set of frames or patterns in our business for the Northwest skins from what we use for the Copper or Alaska skins. Among what are classed by us as Northwest skins are included what are sometimes called Japanese skins, which are the skins of seals killed on the northern Asiatic coasts. These skins come upon the market generally by way of Japan, but sometimes by way of San Francisco or Victoria.

The number of Japanese skins averages, deponent should say, about 5,000 a year, although there is a good deal of fluctuation in the quantity from year to year, and deponent says that, like the other skins included in the Northwest catch, they are principally the skins of female seals, not easily distinguishable from the skins taken from the herds frequenting the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea, except by reason of their being principally speared instead of shot.

[Page 167]

The most essential difference Between the Northwest skins and the Alaska and Copper catches is, that the Northwest skins, so far as they are skins of adult seals, are almost exclusively the skins of female seals, and are nearly always pierced with shot, bullet, or spear holes.

The skins of the adult female seal may be as readily distinguishable from the skins of the adult male as the skins of the different sexes of other animals; that practically the whole of the adult Northwest catch seals were the skins of female seals; but the skins of the younger animals included within this Northwest catch, of which we have at times a considerable number, are much more difficult to separate into male and female skins, and I am not prepared to say that I could distinguish the male from the female skins of young animals.

A certain percentage of young animals is found among the consignments received by us at the beginning of each season, which we understand and are informed are the skins of seals caught in the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of America; but a much smaller percentage of such small skins is found among the consignments later in the season, which we are informed are of seals caught in the Bering Sea.

I have been told that it is easier to catch the female seal at sea than it is to catch the male seal, but I have no personal knowledge of that point. I suppose, however, that there must be some foundation for the statement, by reason of the fact that so small a proportion of male adult seals are included in what is called the Northwest catch.

Eighth. Deponent says that what may be termed the fur-seal business has largely been built up by the efforts of the Alaska Commercial Company, the North American Commercial Company, and the firm of C. M. Lampson & Co.

That it depends to a considerable extent upon making seal skins an article of fashion and of trade, and that a very large amount of capital is invested in the Kingdom of Great Britain in the business.

It is, in deponent’s judgment, fair to estimate the amount of capital invested in the business, in one way or another, to have been at times as much as £1,000,000, and that there have been until lately dependent upon this industry, in the city of London, about 2,000 skilled workmen, most of whom have families dependent upon them for support; and the amount of wages paid to those people deponent estimates on the average at about 30 shillings per week, making an aggregate of £150,000 per annum.

Deponent further says that the continuance of this business depends very largely upon the maintenance of a steady and regular supply of fur-seal skins in order that the trade may be able to calculate with approximate certainty the number of skins which are to be received in each year.

Deponent further says that the maintenance of this business, to his mind, obviously depends upon the preservation of the seal herds resorting to Bering Sea from the destruction which has overtaken the seal herds which were formerly found in the southern regions, and that whatever is necessary to be done to preserving the seal herds in Bering Sea ought to be done; but deponent, having no knowledge of the business of killing seals, and having no scientific knowledge on the subject as a naturalist, is not in a position to relate what laws or regulations, in addition to those already existing, are necessary, if any such are necessary, in order to accomplish this desirable result.

Emil Teichmann.

Francis W. Frigout,
Vice and Deputy Consul-General of the United States of America at London, England.