The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-11-01

to be certain of the game. AS soon as
sea- is shot it begins to sink slowly
sIu the boat is pulled rapidly up TO it,
the carcass is gated and hauled aboard. This is
repeated a. long as q seal can be seen In many
IhsIances only one or two viii be killed during
"noie uay hunting, but at other times as
many as twenty or thirty viii De taken. After
Day hunt the boats return TO the schooner,
the seals are skinned and the pelts laid in salt
n the hold. This goes on from day 10 day dur
Ing the season. small boat il not very safe
craft IN the boisterous water OF the northern
ocean; and the thick fogs often spring up
anu hide the sehooners from the hunters
sIsh', Wnen days may elapse before the
poats are picked up, and sometimes they are
never found. Thus these hardy sesers pursue
the objects OF their chase in the open sea. The
sea- has chance OF escaping and the percentage
killed is very small. When il is considered that
an extent Of ocean OF nearly 1900 square miles
~ huhteo over the Chance is slight of the seals
peing extermiuated by the feet of sixty or
seventy vessels engaged in the seal hunting
1t has been asserted that only few seals out
OF every hundred shot are captured by the hunt
ers, and the balance sink or escape wounded TO
uie later on. This is not so. The ample evil
oehce collected by The commissioners this sea
son proves that q seal hardly ever escapes when
shot. Ogcourse, few do. but not over i've or
SIX out OF the hundred.
The sealing monOpolsts of the rookeries have
had reports made by so-called experts on the
condition OF the sealing business and on the
pronaDe effect on seal lie II the present rate OF
kMtIlihg is to be kept up. All, or nearly all, OF
these experts" have reported that but few seal
are left; that the piraticai poaching scaooners
had killed them of, and yet the whole of the
persons interviewed by the commissioners,
masters OF sealing schooners. Indians along the
coast and traders, admitted that the seals are in
no ways diminishing IN numbers, but that the
present season OF 1891 the fur seals in the North
racine have been more numerous than for the
past past twenty years years here is, however,
have learned what q sealing boat is,
and at the sound of a gun the animal is on its
Ia arda FOrf na hmm to in
range OF his quarry. The Indians Kill the seal
by padding the canoe silently close TO the
Sleeping animal and then with unerriug aim
hurting Daroed spear with a line attached,
Win which the seal IL hauled in and taken
aboard the canoe. Seldom or never does seal
escape The white hunters use the gun as de-
scrlbed.
Although seals have appeared In incredible
numbers this present season of 1891, yet the
weather all through the spring and early sum-
mer months was unusually boisterous, and days
and even weeks elapsed during which time it
was impossible to launch a sealing boat or an
indian canoe, consequently the catch has not
been as large as was generally expected, and
recent accounts from London show that the
prices brought for fur seal skins at the great
trade sales did not average over SIS. As prices
from 81 to So were paid in Victoria for these
skins, somebody has been a great loser and the
prospect now is that fewer vessels will engage
in the business next season and that prices will
rule still lower.
OF the migratory habits OF fur seals but little
has hitherto been made known, for those who
have had the information to give have had an
interest directly opposed to imparting the truth.
Hence the failacious assertion has been made
and stoutly maintained by the monopo lists and
their mendacious hirelings that all the fur seals
OF the North Pacific ocean congregated on the
rookeries of the islands OF the Pribilof group,
and if they are allowed to be killed
by the poaehers and pirates, whom
the general public know as honest,
industrious, energetic fishermen and hunters
the fur seal will become extinct, and Miss Flora
McFlimsey will have nothing 10 wear, poor
grill But the scientific Investigations of the
United States and royal commissions. and par
ticularly the latter, who have made the migra-
tons of the seals a special study, will show that
the habits OF all migratory animals, both birds
and beasts, are governed by natural laws. The
seals, like the great herds OF buffalo, formerly
abundant, and the myriads of wild fowl from
the North, are not leach kind one single great
body. The buffalo were found in great
droyes from Texas to the Assinaboine
and the Red River of the North,
but they were not all in one band. The herds
from lower Texas never went north to the
upper limits, nor did the herds of the extreme
north ever seek their feeding ground in South
ern Texas. Every band had its own range. So
of the Canada geese and other wild fowl, which
were popularity declared to visit the regions of
the North Pole every spring to propagate their
young. No one thought or dared to assert to
the contrary, but when Colonel Goss, the cele-
brated ornithologist, found the nests and eggs
and young of the Canada goose in Kan
and other observers have discovered
these so-called Arctic breeders rearing their
young at the head waters OF the Missouri and
Mississippi, it was found that popular belief re-
garding natural history is not always scientific
fact. and SO as to the habits of the fur seal.
They do not move in one immense herd to Boring
sea, but in droves and bands or schools like fish,
all over the great expanse of the North Pacific
ocean. DR.. Dawson, OF the royal commission,
said, as reported in the Victoria Colonist OF oc-
tober 49,
Very little has been published about the mi
grations of the seals on the North Pacific coast
before they enter the Boring sea, and this point
is one from which we got q lot of interesting
matter. We have taken good deal of evidence
about the presence of seals at Cape Flattery, and
have been told that they were more numer-
Gus last spring than they have been
before. find a peculiar idea exist
ing among those who claim to be authorities in
regard to seals found in the waters OF South
America, especially about Terra del Fuego and
the Straits of Magellan. The notion that they
are the same species Of seal as those found in
Beriug sea and the North Pac fc is quite erro-
neous. They are OF different genus alto
gether.
80 also will these scientific Investigations
show that a portion of the so-called California
enter Bering sea at all, and that its habits In
many respects differ essentially from those
which visit the rookeries on the Pribilof
islands. These California seals do have pups
somewhere on the Coast, either at the Faral-
ZONES or further south, or on the great kelp
patches, as is clearly shown by the young pups
which annually make their appearance with
the herd and are taken and brought into Neah
bay by the Indians every season, and il is further
proved that these pups will swim at birth
and even when taken from their mother
before birth, thus showing difference of habits
between the priblof islands seal and those
taken at Cape Flattery. These facts about the
habits of the fur seals of Cape Flattery, which
have known for more than thirty years, have
this year been proved TO be correct by the ROYAL
scientists and will seem TO show there sre always
two sides 70 every question. While join with
all the sealcrs with whom have conversed that
there should be a close season on the Pribilof
islands when no seals should be killed on those
islands or in Boring sea, Iequally join with some
of the more intelligent and observing of these
sealers that the hunting OF seals along the coast
OF Washington, British Columbia and SOUTH
eastern Alaska does not in any way affect the
seal catch on the Pribilof islands, there is
every reason to assume that these coast seals
never enter Boring sea.
When we cons der how the development OF
the fisheries OF the North Pacific have been
paralvz d by this seal controversy, and our
fishermen have been driven by the mistaken
policy OF our government 10 seek protection
under the British nag, we may well exclaim:
"This is a sorry sight The fishermen OF Glou-
cester aud other Eastern ports, who were pro-
tected by our government in their fisheries on
the Atlantic, almost 20 the verge OF hostiities
with Great Britain, find that when they come
around Cape Horn to engage in the same peace
full and honorable vocation in the North Paci-