The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-07-06
HELPLESS SEALS
ARE SLAUGHTERED
BY THE THOUSANDS
Annual Hunt Takes Place
Off Coast of Newfound-
land-Humans Also
Perish

ST. John. n b., July Especially
Newfoundland is the greatest fishing
country in the world Two-thirds of its
people are engaged in the business of har-
yesting the oceans wealth. From child
hood until old age this is their calling.
The seaboard is exposed to natures
fercest rage, and peril besets them on.
every hand. The waste of human life is
dreadful hundreds perish annually. and
yet, though scarcely family within its
borders escapes loss through its trage-
dies, the Viking spirit is strong, and the
daring fisherfolS still persist In defying
the elements year after year.
The seal fishery or seal hunt, takes
place in the early spring of each year,
among the foes which cover the ocean off
Labrador and Newfoundland. The win
ters final fury is then spending itself,
fieree bizzards sweep the north Atlantic,
the icy masses are sent crashing against
one another, or RATED into chaotic heaps,
and no situation could be worse than that
of the ships and crews enmeshed there
In. The inset of the currents usually
carries the foes against the shore, and
the coastfolk can venture out on foot or
In boats to stalk the wary seals, though
the main fishery is now conducted by
steamboats, in the outer waters. The fleet
consists this year of "a Ships half of them
steel fabrics and the other half specially
built of oak and green heart, neither at
tractive nor speedy. but splendid for ice
navigation.
They carry from 100 to go men, each
ship being literally packed with humans,
f.at. ka s1Ax, u. f..ff
rapidly as possible then return. There is
but scant living room rudimentary sani-
tation and little comfort aboard these
craft; very few carry surgeons, and a
man cannot easily earn more than 500 for
the cruise, which, under most favorable
circumstances, means a months work-a,
week preparing, a fortnight In the voyage
and week settling up' after the re-
turn The ships are not allowed to kill
seals before March, so that unlucky YES
sells are usually out six to eight weeks.
Hunted for Skins
The Newfoundland seals are hunted for
their skins and fat. They do not possess
the furry covering of their Alaskan con-
gener. The skin is used to make patent
leather and kid" gloves the fat is con-
verted into oil as a base for high class
soaps or, with the stearine removed, be-
comes a substitute for olive oil. The
seals mount the ice foes off Labrador in
February to deposit their young. These
weight but a few pounds at first, but
grow so rapidly that within a fortnight
| they scale 40 to so pounds. They are then
| fit to kill. but to prevent the slaughter
! of immature ones the steamships are held
! in port until March IA. The young seals,
| known as "whitecoats," are the most val
| ua BILE and the easiest got. They lie help
| less on the foes and are killed by aisblow
on the head with an iron shod pole called
a gaff. The parents are more difficult to
handle and often give battle, having to
| be dispatched with afbullet.
| 1t takes mature experience and pro-
found sagacity TO strike the .'whelping
ice," whereon the young are bedded, in a
nightly expanse of floating crystal cover
ing the ocean for hundreds of miles. The
extent of the Arctic foe driven south each
year is at least three or four times as
large as New York state. On these wastes
the killing of seals is a ruthless out
break of the human passion for slaughter
The thousands of men rush on to the ice
with clubs and knives and as the white
coatsa' are stunned with the former they
are disemboweled with the latter. SO easy
Is this butchery that the crew of one
steamer, 270 men. totaled more than 1900
in a day. and the crew of another ac-
counted for 1900. AS the victims are slain
they are gathered into NUMBER OF neaps,
each on a separate PAN" or islet of ice,
and the ships flag is displayed above
every pan, so that as she comes along in
the wake of her men she takes those seals
on board, the crew falling back to her
at sundown.
But fog often closes over the foes
and hundreds of men from different ships
are isolated by it, cut off from their ves-
sells and rendered incapable of movement
because of the dangers they may stray
into in this binding mist. In 1909 nearly