THE FUR SEAL ISLANDS. (UNITED STATES ECONOMIST.)

Waikato Times, Volume III, Issue 170, 10 June 1873, Page 2

THE FUR SEAL ISLANDS. (UNITED STATES ECONOMIST.)

One hundred and eighty miles north of the Aleutian. Penin- . sula^and 300 west of the mainland of Alaska, are two small j islands known as the seal islands (or more specifically Priby- i loff Islands), which were discovered and settled by theRussians some eightj years ago. The largest one,,St Paul, has about fifty miles- of 'shore line, St George's, probably having twenty or twenty-fire. To these islands come every year, in the summer time, an extraordinary number of fur seals, for the purpose of breeding ;. some four or five millionsat least were, at the time of Writing, hauled up on the rocky shores. The old males come first, generally two months earlier than the females. They take up positions on and among the rocks above the tide level, and wait patiently for the arrival of their partners in this instinctive perpetuativelabour. When they first come out from the sea aud lie up on the shore, they are exceedingly fat and sleek, and it is well that they are so, for upon this fatness alone they, live for three, four, and even five months, without taking food of any kind, or seldom leaving their stand on the rocks. This existence is not passed in a, comatose condition by any means — rather one of the most incessant and violent exercise,, fighting, furiously among themselves for their position* oa the rookery, so desperately as to frequently kill one another,, and in attending the females fiuring the .breeding season.. The younger males are not permitted by the older ones to take a stand on the breeding ground, or rookery, they areobliged to haul up in large droves by themselves, either to one side or far in the rear of the ground occupied by their seniors. It it from the?e flocks or herds of young bachelor* that the selection of killable seals is made, and the " drive" taken. Females are never slaughtered for their skins. The females begin to land about the middle of June in large numbers, and very soon after having found then* place* oa the rookery, give birth to their young, and stay by them to the end of September — before leaving the ground, only going now and then into the water to wash and cool thomselves. The females have but one pup a year, though they may likeother animals have occasionally twins j but Captain Bryant, who has watched them for three years, lias never observed a case. Their bodies, so well enveloped in fat, are admirably adapted to the rough, sharp-edged rocks, on which they lie month after mouth in apparent ease and comfort , TheGovernment, after careful deliberation over and consideratioD of many propositions, has leased to the Alaska Commercial Company the islands for a term of twenty years, giving the company the exclusive right to take sealskins, limiting it at j the same time to securing a certain number per tnnnm, 100,000. For this privile«e the Gtovecnraent. receives tilevery handsome revenue of $340,000 yearly, with scarcely any cost o( collection more than the pay of one agent "and three assistants, who are stationed on the two ishndt to see that all the conditions of the lease »re faithfully carried out. By putting this limitation on the number of seals to be killed every season, and restricting the destruction to the males only, the increase and perpetuation of these valuable animal* is ensured. Were this not done the seals would soon be exterminated, as have already been their cousins in th» Antarctic.