SEALS AND SEALSKINS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1891, 17 February 1888, Page 32

SEALS AND SEALSKINS.

Where the Most Valuable Fur Seals Are Found— Alaska's Enormous Herds. While a great many people are interested in sealskins, most of them have a rather vague idea as to the animals from which they are stripped. Every spring, when it is announced that the Jan Mayen hunters have brought 20,000, 30,000, 50,000 or 150,000 to Dundee, or that those who rendezvous at St. John's or Harbour Grace have landed 200,000 or more, the prints which especially concern themselves with ladies' dress are filled with jubilation over the approaching cheapness of the fur, to possess which seems to constitute the acme of female ambition. In reality these captures off Newfoundland or in the Arctic Sea have no effect whatever on the fur market. There are "hair" seals, of no value except for their hide, out of which leather is made, or for their blubber. No fur seals, in the sealskin-jacket sense of the term, are found in the North Atlantic, they are almost entirely confined to the North and South Pacific. From the South Shetlands and the Georgian Islands the seals, once so abundant, have almost vanished ; and neither Saint Paul's nor the Crozets, nor Marion Isle, the Elephant Isle, and Amsterdam, nor even the Tristan da Cunha yield anything like the number they once did. The early adventurers who first fell among the "rookeries" in these localities seem to have had a glorious time that their less fortunate successors cannot help envying them, even at the distance of a century, though sealskins were not so valuable in those far away days. In 1800, when the fur-seal business was at its height at the Georgian Islands, 112,000 seals were taken, of which 57,000 were secured by a single ship. Between the years 1820 and 1821 over 300,000 seals were taken at the South Shetland Islands alone, though, in addition to the number of old ones killed for their fur, not fewer than 100,000 newly-born young died in consequence of the destruction of their mothers. So indiscriminate was the slaughter that whenever a seal reached the beach, no matter what its age, it was immediately clubbed. The result of this butchery was soon apparent. In 1822 the enormous herds in the South Shetlands had been exterminated, and in 1830 sealing in the South Sea was pronounced a losing business, the old resorts of the animals having been abandoned or "cleared out," so that the hunters had to go farther afield or be content with profits much smaller or much more precarious. At this day fur seals of different species are picked up all through the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic regions, as well as along the coast of Japan and Siberia, as far as Kamschatka, the Kurirlcs and Behring Strait. From California northward three species are found. A few are seen on the shores of California, Oregon and Washington Territory, and the Indians of Vancouver Island and British Columbia find a moderate profit in those which they kill. It is, however, not until the Prybiloy, or Seal Islands, off the shores of Alaska, are reached that the fur seal attains its maximum. These islets are leased by the United States Government to a commercial company, who are bound by their contract, made in pursuance of an Act of Congress, not to kill more than 75,000 a year on St. Paul's Island, or more than 25,000 on St. George's Island ; though the Secretary of the Treasury has power to alter the ratio for each island if he pleases,, or to ex! end the period for killing them from June to the 15th of August, and then after an interval during Sepl ember and October. The killing of female seals and seals less than one yea:- old, and, among other regulations to the same effect, the use of firearms or other means tending to drive the seals away from tho islands are expressly forbidden. No dogs are permitted on the is'amls, and no vessels other than those employed by the company arc permitted to touch there or land any persons or mijrchi'ndinc, except- in ca-o of shipwreck or vessels in diet t ess. Tho method of capture is to drive the soak into little heads or

" pods-," whew they ate leisurely despatched by the blows of a club on the head;—Londoii Standard;