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pelagic catches

Examination of confirm the fact that a very large proportion of the pelagic catches consist of female seals.1

1892.

females taken at

Proportion of This large ratio of females taken at sea does sea prior to 1870. not differ from that observed before the Pribilof Islands were leased. In the official report on the seal question made by a special agent of the United States on November 30, 1869, the following appears: "Nearly all the 5,000 seals annually caught on the British Columbian coast * * "2 and Capt. are pregnant females Bryant, in 1870, also states that "formerly in March and April the natives of Puget Sound took large numbers of pregnant females."

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2. That pelagic sealing in Bering Sea is not as destructive to seal life as pelagic sealing in the North Pacific.

There is an evident attempt on the part of the British Commissioners to establish that the principal harm to the seal herd resulting from pelagic sealing is inflicted during the herd's Grounds for the migration in the Pacific Ocean. This is based, primarily, on the assumption that no gravid females are taken in Bering Sea (Sec. 648), and that the alleged occasional deaths of "a few

Report's statements.

C. J. Behlow, post pp. 353-358.

Ex. Doc. No. 32, 41st Cong., 2d Sess., p. 39.

3 Bull. 2, Mus. Comp. Zoology, p. 88.

females in milk" (Sec. 649) does not destroy Grounds for the

the offspring of such females (Secs. 355, 356).

Report's statements.

males.

It will be seen, on an examination of the statements of the pelagic sealers quoted in the Report (Secs. 645, 646), that but eight refer to the number of females taken in Bering Sea, and these give percentages which are practically the same as those given for the catch in the North Pacific. It is, therefore, conceded that the destruction of female life in Bering Sea is as great as along the Northwest Coast. The distinction is made, how- Pregnant feever, that no gravid females are taken in Bering Sea. It must be recollected, in this connection, that the admitted period of gestation of the furseal is "nearly twelve months" (Sec. 434), and that, therefore, an adult female which has been fertilized is pregnant at all times when found in the water, and certainly so if the fact alleged in the Report, that the female remains on the rookeries from four to six weeks after giving birth to her young, could be established (Secs. 306, 307).

The designed implication that very few nursing Nursing females. female seals are taken by pelagic sealers (Sec.

investigations,

649) is based on pure assumption, no evidence Capt. Hooper's being advanced to support it. Capt. Hooper, 1892. already referred to, states that of 29 female seals

taken by him in 1892 in Bering Sea, 22 were

seals by C. H.

Townsend, 1892.

Examination of nursing females; and Mr. C. H. Townsend, of the U. S. Fish Commission, the well-known naturalist who accompanied him, includes in his deposition a photograph of two half-skinned cows taken. August 2, 1892, 175 miles from the Pribilof Islands, exhibiting the distended mammary glands, "which in all cases were filled with milk."2

Dead pups on the rookeries.

That the pups of these nursing cows are dependent solely upon their mothers for nourishment has already been discussed both in the Case of the United States and in this Counter Case.3

The Commissioners, to support their position, endeavor to explain away the obvious inference derivable from the fact that a large number of dead pup-seals were observed by them on the Pribilof rookeries during their cursory examination of seal life on the Islands. It is evident, from the efforts made and theories advanced to explain this mortality, that the Commissioners considered the presence of these bodies prima facie evidence of the fact they endeavor to disprove (Secs. 344-356). These officials have, through some strange circumstance, been led into the belief that they were the first to

1 Capt. Hooper's report, post table facing p. 219.

2 C. H. Townsend, post p. 394.

3 Ante p. 53.

the rookeries.

observe this mortality among the pups on the Dead pups on rookeries (Sec 83), from which belief they draw the inference that "the death of so many young seals on the Islands in 1891 was wholly exceptional and unprecedented" (Sec. 355). The depositions, however, of many witnesses appended to the Case of the United States show not only that dead pups had been observed on the rookeries as early as 1885, but that the numbers had after that year annually increased.1 Mr. J. Stanley-Brown testifies that he had already seen and noted the dead bodies before the Commissioners arrived at the Islands in 1891, and that the cause of death had been fully discussed by those on the Islands.2

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The same opinion as to the cause of this mortality, which "in no instance was first voluntarily advanced" (Sec. 83) to the Commissioners, namely, "the killing of the mother at sea" (Sec. 83), existed for several years before the British officials examined the Pribilof rookeries. It is unfortunate for the position taken by the Commissioners, to the effect that the mortality was unusual and that the cause assigned

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1 Appendix to Case of the United States, Vol. II, pp. 32, 39, 51, 71, etc.

2 Appendix to Case of the United States, Vol. II, p. 19.

3 Appendix to Case of United States, Vol. II, pp. 32, 39, 51, 71, etc.

Cause of death.

Cause of death. by those on the Islands a day or two after the

investigations by these officials was a novel suggestion, that, notwithstanding the "care" asserted by them to have been taken to complete their personal knowledge of all documentary evidence obtainable, "including the previous official cor

respondence" (Sec. 8), they should have overMr. Blaine's looked a note from Mr. Blaine to Sir J. Pauncenote of March 1, 1890. 'fote, dated March 1, 1890 (Parliamentary Paper

[C, 6131], 1890, p. 424), in which were inclosed extracts from an official report made to the House of Representatives in 1889, which document is so often quoted in the British Report. Among these extracts appears the following statement made by Dr. H. H. McIntyre (ibid., p. 430):

"The marauding [pelagic sealing] was extensively carried on in 1885 and 1886, and in previous years, and of course the pups that would have been born from cows that were killed in 1885, or that perished through the loss of their mothers during that year, would have come upon the islands in 1888. * * * I would say, further, that if the cows are killed late in the season, say in August, after the pups are born, the latter are left upon the island deprived of the mother's care and, of course, perish. The effect is the same whether the cows are killed before or after the pups are dropped. The young perish in either

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