The Opelousas courier., 1894-06-09
RICHER TIA FUR-SEALS
SEA OFFERS ARE BEING RAPIDLY
ExIERMINATEn.
Ti/ey Bear the Most Precious of All
Skins - Their Habits and How
They are Hunted.

iuly e4l6IIQludteu III DSTlus
Sea and in the waters along the
northwest coast, owing to long continued
neglect IN the part of the Treasury De-
''partment to enforce existing laws for its
protection. As a result this Government
is likely to have to undertake the sup
port of several hundred natives on west
ern islands of the Aleutian chain, who
have hitherto depended on the chase ot
the sea otter for their living. The final
destruction of this interesting beast sig
mites the reduction of population in that
region to absolute savagery, and even to
starvation. Already the formerly pros
porous inhabitants of certain villages
have been brought to such extremities
as to be obliged to subsist on seaweed,
being only saved from perishing by
stores of provisions contributed by the
steamer Bear and other ships,
The fur of the sea otter is the most
beautiful and costly of all peltries. 1t
has as fixed a value in the market o-day
as any of the precious metals, a prime
skin being worth $3.50, while an excep.
tionslly good one will sometimes fetch
as much as $3.50. From the earliest
times it has commanded as high a price
as to-day. The japanese priced it above
all other materials for garments as long
ago as 1000 years before the discovery
of America by Columbus, and mighty
tycoons clothed themselves with its
shimmering velvet. When the Russians
first opened up the Aleutlan Islands and
the Hudson Bay traders secured the
coasts of Puget Sound and Oregon, they
found the natives commonly wearing sea
otter cloaks, with which they parted for
a trife, not valuing them equally with
the hair seal or the sea lion, the flesh and
skins of the latter being more palatable
and servieeable.
The offers of the traders made hunting
for sea offers brisk, and more than 10,-
900 persons we're annually engaged in
pursuit of the animal from 1741 until
1s45, when their numbers we're so far
reduced as to render the industry on such
q scale no longer renunerative. Some
lotion may be got of their original plen-
tifulness f-cm the fact that in the year
1904 a single vessel carried to Russia
Is, 200 skins, worth then, asnow at least
81, 500, 000.. The work of extermlEation
was carried on at a frightful rate. Du-
ring the first year after the discovery of
the Pribylov Islands, which are the
Breeding ground of the fur seals, two
sailors killed there 5000 sea offers. The
next year they secured 1000. Six years
latter not a single sea otter r~eappeared,
and none has been there since. With
similar rapidity they were wiped out all
along the Aleutian chain and down the
northwest coast as far south as the
southern boundry of Oregon.
Sea offers spend most of their lives at
sea. The mother brings forth a single
young one, for the safety of which she
exercises the utmost solicitude. During
infancy it is carried most of the time on
the body of it's mamma, who floats on
her back while her offspring uses her as
a sort of raft to play about u. When
frightened she takes the pup in her
mouth and dives. If surprised by the
hunter IN land she never thinks Of de-
serting the pup, but clasps it tightly in
her arms and turns her back to receive
the spear or bullet. In feeding the an.
imal usually fetches a number of she'll
fish to surface and eats them while lying
on it's back IL the water, laying them on
its breast and breaking and d%evouring
them M by M Crabs, fishes and the
tender fronds Of seaweeds form a por-
ton of its diet while of sea urchlns it is
particularly fond, and it is said to break
them open by taking n in each paw
and smashing them together.
The Aleuts declare that the sea otter
is the most intelligent and clever of all
marine animals, just as the bear is the
wisest of all beasts on land. Certainly
no living creature surpasses it IN keen
ness of sight and hearing. The hunters
know better than to light a fire within
five miles to the windward of its haunts,
and many an ebbing and flowing tide is
required to so wash away the scent Of
human footprints on the beach as to sat:
isfy the animal of the safety of landing
there. The natives, who seek the ISL
ands of Suanach and Chernolours in
pursuit of it during the winter, often
spend many weeks there without making
a fire, lest the smell of it frighten the
quarry. For the same reason they re-
frain from smoking or chewing tobacco,
and the refuse of their food, instead of
being scattered on or zeal the beaches,
must be carried inland and buried. 1t
is asserted that when the sea otter is
hunted down in its desperation it will
sometimes dive and jam itself into a
'crevice in the rocks beneath the water,
never rising again.
The mother sea otter sleeps on the sur
face of the water with her pup clasped
in her fore paws. The latter can never
be reared by hand. Attempts to bring
up young N are often made by the
Aleuts, who very commonly capture
them alive, bnt they invariably refuse to
eat and die of starvation. The new
born animal has a coat of coarse brown
and grizzled fur, which becomes gradu-
ally darker, thicker and finer as it grows
older. so chat at two years of age it is in
prime condition. At five years the
creature is full grown, and is then a lit
tie bigger than an adult beaver, measur-
ing about four feet from the muzzle to
the. tip of the tail. It has a white nose
and white mustache and whiskers. The
fur is glossy like velvet, with white
hairs scattered all over it. Its legs are
short, with webbsd feet and nails like a
dogs. The hind fippers are powerful
swimming organs, by means of which it
can travel very rapidly in the water, and