Comparative ratio between the North Pacific and Bering Sea sizes of Bering catches. Sea and Pacific catches for a longer period, as prior to 1889 the Bering Sea catch included a portion of the catch in the North Pacific (p. 211, note). Scaling season in Bering Sea and The Report, in treating of pelagic sealing Pacific compared. along the coast, states that the season extends from February to June, inclusive, and that in Bering Sea it includes July and August (Secs. 132, 212, 308, 582). It can be assumed, therefore, from the statements in the Report, that the coast catch occupies four and one-half months in taking and the Bering Sea catch but two months. On the authority of these statements above noted a table has been compiled, which shows the averAverage daily age daily catch per vessel for three years (1889– coast to have been 4.3 and in This includes 1891, when the enforcement of the Modus Vivendi seriously curtailed the season in Bering Sea. The United States, therefore, contend that pelagic sealing in Bering Sea is at least three times as destructive to seal life as that along the Northwest Coast. catch in Bering compared. Sea and Pacific 1891) along the 3. That the waste of life resulting from pelagic sealing is insignificant. This third proposition is advanced in the Report in defense of the method employed in Table compiled from Commissioners' tables, post p. 411. significant. taking seals in the open sea; and the Commis-Waste of life insioners, in order to establish their position, collect and quote the statements of a number of persons who disagree with the proposition which the Report endeavors to substantiate (Secs. 613, 614). These statements are all characterized as being made by persons "presumably interested in, or engaged in protecting the breeding islands, but without personal experience in the matter" (Sec. 615). The Report then proceeds to array advanced in the against these opinions a number of statements. "for the most part made by persons directly interested in pelagic sealing," but which, it is alleged, "must be considered as of a much higher order of accuracy" (Sec. 616) than the former statements. These interested parties thus quoted The evidence Report. dians. by white hunters. in the Report (Secs. 616-621) state that the Percentage of Indians lose of the seals killed by them "very few" (Sec 618), "at most, a few" (Sec. 619), and "one per cent." (Secs. 617, 621); the white Percentage lost hunters, on the other hand, are credited with losing from 3 to 6 per cent (Secs. 616-621). The Commissioners then present a number of statements (Secs. 623-626) collected from inexperienced individuals, which are open to the same criticisms as the adverse statements first quoted in the Report. Tabulated statements of white hunters. of statements. An endeavor is then made "to elucidate the question" under consideration by tabulating a number of statements made by white hunters. and Indians, some of which are supported by their depositions and others not. "The results of this method of treatment" show that the white hunters affirm that they lose but 4 per cent of the seals they kill, while the Indians give their Inconsistencies loss as 8 per cent (Sec. 627). The table entitled "White Hunters" (p. 107) is averaged, while the table entitled "Indian Hunters" (p. 108) is not, for the obvious reason that these Indians (Sec. 627) appear to have lost twice as many seals as the whites, which is in direct contradiction of the statements quoted in the Report, where the witnesses speak of both classes of hunters (Secs. 616-621). If the Indian statements are to be accepted that 8 out of 100 seals killed by them are lost, and also the statements of Captains Warren, Petit, and others (Secs. 616-621) that the white hunters lost five times as many as Indian hunters, then the former are admitted to lose at least 40 per cent of the seals they kill. It is difficult to harmonize this conclusion with the table entitled "White Hunters" (p. 107), and the evidence thus presented is so contradictory that it is hard to see how any conclusions could have been reached by the Commissioners. The table entitled "White Hunters" is made Sources of "White Hunters" up from the statements of sixteen witnesses; table. five of these (Nos. 1, 7, 20, 26, and 27, p. 107) state specifically that the loss of seals they refer to are seals lost by sinking; six others, examined at the same time as the former witnesses, do not state what they mean by "seals lost," but it is to be presumed their meaning is the same; the statements of three others whose evidence "was personally obtained" can not be examined on this point, as such statements have not been published; Abel Douglass's ratio of loss is given in the table without reference to where it was obtained, so that what he means by "seals lost" is impossible to determine; the one remaining hunter used in the compilation of the table (William Fewing) is the only one who definitely, or impliedly, states that "seals lost" refers to those escaping as well as to those that sink, and this is particularly noted in the table under "Remarks." seals lost by sink ing. It can be fairly assumed, therefore, that this Table only gives table only represents the seals lost by sinking. The whole question, so important to this controversy, as to how many seals are lost by wounding is summed up in the vague admission, that "a certain proportion of the seals shot of course escape" (Sec. 628), and is dismissed by calculat 12364- -7 seals lost by sink ing. wounding. Table only gives ing the number of encysted bullets found in male seals killed on the Islands in 1890, showing an average of one bullet to 280 seals killed (Sec. 628). The notion that the carcass of every seal killed on the Islands is searched for encysted bullets is sufficiently absurd, but it seems to be assumed in the reasoning of the Commissioners. Seals lost by The necessarily large percentage of seals which lose their lives by wounding is shown by Mr. Townsend in his account of his experience as a pelagic hunter.1 He states that "many times the animal is wounded sufficiently to get out of reach of the hunter before it dies;" and, again, "it is from the instantly killed the seals are secured; the wounded animal uses its death struggle to get out of reach." It is evident how much this class of "seals lost" must outnumber those which, killed outright, sink before they can be secured;2 and yet the Commissioners have, presumably through oversight, ignored this important factor of waste of life and have dealt solely with the seals which pelagic hunters lose by the sinking of the carcass. 1 Post p. 395. • See also reports of Capt. C. L. Hooper, post pp. 208–219. |