Sullivan republican. [volume] (Laporte, Pa.) 1883-1896, 1894-11-16
THE VALUABLE FUR SEAL,
AN ANIMAL OVER WHICH GOVERN.
MENTS HAVE ARBITRATED.

United states From Seals Killed
A Remarkable Creature.
'HHE fur seal tits name should
be furry sea lion) is the most
celebrated of all our fur
bearers, and the United States
Government has been as active in pro.
tecting it from destruction as it was
Indifferent to the fate of the buffalo
millions. If our great international
dispute with England and Canada
over the fur seal had arisen seventy
years ago, before the days of peaceful
arbitration, there would surely have
been a war over it. Nor is our inter.
est in our fur seal to be wondered at
when we stop to consider that from
1870 to 1890 our National Treasury
received Sc, ,000,0 900 from the Alaska
Commercial Company as royalty on
the animals killed (six-sevenths of the
purchase price of Alaska). When to
this we add the amount received in
twenty per cent. import duty on the
dressed skins as they came back to us
from the English dyers, the total
revenue derived from the fur seal in
twenty years amounts to the enor-
nous sum of $500, 900. Such an
animal was worth saving from destruc-
tion. No other quadruped ever be-
came such bone of contention be-
tween two great nations for a long
period, the discussion winding up
with high and mighty conference OF
arbitration.
As usual, the whole trouble arose
through the greediness of few ire
sponsible and lawless individuals. The
sealers of the Pacific coast insisted
upon taking fur seals by shooting
them in the open sea, by which waste
full process seven were lost for every
three secured. But if it were not for
the loss of money revenue derived
from this animal, it is quite certain
the Government would have allowed
the wasteful slaughter to go on until
the last seal was dead.
The fur seal IS not true seal by
any means, but sea lion, with naked,
paddle-shaped flippers and tiny ears.
It is about two-thirds the size of the
Zalophus, and is therefore the small
est member of the sea-lion family.
Mr.. Elliott gives the average length
of the full-grown male animal as six
| feet from nose to tail, and weight
from $50 to 500 pounds. The average
length of the adult female is tritie
over four feet, and weight from sixty
two to seventy-five pounds. When
dry, the coat is of a dark, steel gray
color, and only the coarse, stiff outer
hair is visible. Underneath this lies
a dense coat of very fine and soft
light-brown fur, in which lies all the
value of the skin. In preparing the
pelt, the coarse outer hair is entirely
removed, and the underlying fur is
dyed shiny, lustrous black, and
sheared down very evenly. For some
mysterious reason, we, the people OF
sYankee ingenuity" are actually un-
able to dye seal fur successfully, and this
work is from sheer necessity sent to
England. When it comes back, there
is high rate of duty to pay, which IN
addition to the original royalty OF
| S1O.22 paid 10 the Government by the
| North American Commercial Company
for every skin taken, the very long
bill of transportation charges, labor,
and profits all along the line, from the
back of the seal to that of the fortu-
nate wearer, accounts for the price OF
from $3.50 to 5000 on seal skin
| cloak.
In its habits the fur seal is re-
markable creature. With 5000 miles
of coast to land upon if it chose. his
strange and perverse animal now re-
fuses to set fipper upon any portion
| of the whole North American contl-
nent, island or mainland, save tho
two little dots of land in Bering Sea,
st. Paul, and st. George Islands,
known to the world collectively as the
Pribilof Islands. st. Paul is seven
miles by fourteen, and st. George Is
only five and half by thirteen.
And yet, when Mr.. Elliott made his
, careful and elaborate surveys OF oil
the "rookeries," or herding grounds
on those islands, in July, 1878, and
laboriously calculated the number OF
their fin footed inhabitants, he found
there the astonishing number OF 81
1884, fur seals. Like sheep IN
pen, they actually crowded one another
on the sloping shores of sand, or water
worn boulders, or tables of slaty blue
basalt. Each burly old male appears
q giant beside the females and young
males gathered around him. st. Nich-
olas.