STRANGE MIGRATION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 115, 17 May 1930, Page 9

STRANGE MIGRATION

SEAL HERD ON THE MOVE FOUR THOUSAND MILES’ TREK VANCOUVER, April 16. Under tho protection of the United States Coastguard and the Canadian Merchant Marine, the great seal herd is now moving north on its 4000-milc trek from tropical waters to tho Pribiloffs, west of Alaska. Nature’s strangest migration, begun early in March, is expected to end in May. The advance guard of bull seals, some weighing 10001 b., is now off the coast of the State of Washington, moving leisurely along, 15 to 20 miles off shore, convoyed by the steamer Snohomish. In a few days the females will come, followed by the younger seals.

Drawing level with the international border, the convoy will be handed over to the Givenchy and the Malaspina, which will take the herd to Alaska waters, handing them over again to the steamer Unalaga, which will attend them to St- Paul, tho biggest rookery of the sealing grounds, which is said to have a capacity of 400,000 seals. None but the Indian may interfere with the migrants. Under an ancient treaty, he is permitted to hunt them in. canoes, using only the traditional bow and spear of his ancestors. When the pups are born, Old. klan Seal has no interest in them. The mother must teach them to swim and defend themselves agaiust their natural enemies. She will drag them to the edge of a pool and. swim up and down before them. Then she will haul them into the water, one by one, and teach them the breaststroke.

Captain Robert Bartlett, the famous Arctic explorer, who is never content unless ho spends Easter on the sealing grounds off the Grand Banks, states that one may change tho babies around, as Owen Wister’s Virginian did with the babies at the party, but the mother seal will never make a mistake in their identity. On one occasion he tagged 20 of the pups while their mothers were foraging for food, and after the maternal disputes had died down he went round and found that every pup was in his right home.