Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1891-09-24
FACTS ABOUT SEALING.
DETAILS CONCERNING THE FUR
SEAL OF ALASKA.
Seals in the North Atlantic-HOw
They Are Taken, and the Value of
Their Skins-A Source of Food for
the Esquimaux.

They Are Taken, and the Value of
Their Skins-A Source of Food for
the Esquimaux.
While on my way to Newfoundland
last fall on the Red Cross Line steamship
Miranda, we stopped to take ON some
passengers at Halifax. Among them
was a six-footer whom you would have
taken for Down East Yankee if it had
not been for his strong German accent.
He turned out to be sealer, in fact, q
regular seal poacher, on his way to New
foundland to try to pick up a crew for
his schooner, which he had just pur-
chased at Halifax. He was quite a char
acter, and gave me many interesting
facts about his sealing trips, which from
his account must have been very prof.
table. He had been caught by the Rus
sian authorities and imprisoned and
fined, but neither this nor the hardships
of the long voyages seemed to deter him
in the least from trying his luck again.
He found no trouble in shipping crew
OF hardy seal gunners at st. Johns,
though the pay, $13 per month and
found, seemed very small for so hard
trip.
He calculated that it would take him at
least five months to reach the sealing
grounds, but he promised each man so
cents extra for every seal they shot and
saved. l was surprised to hear him say
that he expected to take his wife along
with him, and it seemed to me, as we were
plunging through the heavy seas in a
bowling gale in our stanch steamer that
1t was carrying devotion pretty far to
make that long and dangerous voyage
around Cape Horn in small schooner.
He gave me the following interesting
account of the fur seal whose skins are
so highly priced by our wives and daugh-
ters when made up into coats and jackets.
These intelligent looking animals, with
their great soft eyes that look almost
human, are covered with long, glossy,
grayish- brown hair which completely
hides the undercoat of fur, and of course
this hair has to be removed when the
skins are prepared by the furrier. They
breed on group of islands in the Pacific
Ocean known as the Pribylov Islands of
Alaska. The males make their appear
ance there about the first week in May,
and about June land in great numbers.
The females begin to land about the
middle of June. A full grown male will
much smaller and lighter. The male
seals indulge in savage battles for choice
OF location, and tear and cut one another
terribly with their sharp teeth. The
stronger ones secure favorable positions
along the beach, while the weaker and
the young males, or bachelors" as they
are called, take up positions farther back.
Their " bleating" resembles the sound
made by sheep, and the roaring noise
they make when fighting can be heard for
miles on still day.
The males remain on the islands for
three or four months, and during that
time never take any nourshment and
only sleep by "fits and starts" as they
are terribly jealous and watch their
focks of females with great care. When
the males first arrive they are fat and
sleek, but gradually their long fast and
constant worry reduce their flesh until
they return to the water only skin and
bones. The females give birth to but
one pup" as their young are called,
Immediately after landing; but they feed
regularly and go and come to and from
seem to be able to recognize their own
young ones by voice alone, and can pick
them out from the many thousands that
herd together. The pups cannot swim
at first, but after much awkward tumb-
ling and scrambling in the shallow water
soon teach themselves.
The animals are very gentle and are
not afraid of man, though the males are
not pleasant and are unsafe TO approach
when fighting The females, however,
are tho picture of gentlcness and allow
the males to grab them and lift them
about without tho slightest show of rcsis-
tance; but after the females are all
landed and the fighting is over the seal
hunters drive them in immense droves TO
n convenient spot for slaughter and club
them to dcnth
During tue warm weather the seals
suffer very much from the heat, and can
be seen flaming themselves with their
hippers or hind feet, which are not un-
like the human foot in shape, though
much longer.
OF course the seal poachers dare not
approach, these breeding grounds, but
have TO bo content to shoot the stray
seals, and they are treated as outlaws,
and thu Russian authorities are partcu-
larly severe.
Now that the seals are to have rest
and the sealing grounds are patrolled by
government vessels, poaching will be
almost impossible, and probably my
long-leggcd friend will meet with disap-
pointment or como to grief.
There urc other seals very valuable TO
commerce besides the sea bears, as fur
seals used to be called. OF these the
harp and the harhor seals are the prin-
cipal ones.
My return voyage from Newfoundland
was made ON the Red Cross line steam
ship Portia, commanded by Capt. Ash.
The readers of the Sunday Recorder will
probably remember that Capt. Ash was
ice pilot on the Bear, and was the first
man to reach and rip open the tent whore
Lieut.. Grcely and his unfortunate COM
panions wero lying whom they were res
oued. Tho captain gave me very
graphic account of the finding of Lieut..
Greedy, and it seemed doubly interesting
whom heard from the lips of one who
took nm active part in the gallant rescue.
But this has nothing to do with seals.
What started 10 tell was that Capt.
Ash, who is q resident of st. Johns, n.
F., when at home, which was not very
often, was an old sealer and had followed
seal hunting along the coasts of Labra-
dor and Newfoundland. The powerfully
built seal steamers fit out at st. Johns,
md durinp the season bring in immense