Seal fishery

“ A third fishery, even more lucrative and important, is that of the skins of various varieties of seal which inhabit most of the islands of Bass Strait, all the Furneaux Islands, all the islands off the eastern coast of Van Diemen's Land, and all those on the south-west coast of New Holland, and which probably will be found upon the archipelagos of the eastern portion of this vast continent. The skins of these various species of seal are much desired in China. The sale of a shipload of these goods in that country is as rapid as it is lucrative. ”

“ The seals and sea-lions, which were so abundant formerly, are now reduced to such a small number, as to make the seal-fishery scarcely worth notice. They have been destroyed by taking them indiscriminately, without regard to age or sex, leaving none to propagate the race but those who by chance escaped. ”

“ They need the seals for clothing, boots, fresh food, and fats. They use every portion of the few animals which each catches, while the big steamers lose thousands which they have killed, by not carrying them at once to the ship and leaving them in piles to be picked up later. Moreover, in the latter case all the good proteid food of their carcasses is left to the sharks and gulls.
At twelve o'clock of March 10, 1896, the good ship Neptune hauled out into the stream at St. John's Harbour, Newfoundland, preparatory to weighing anchor for the seal fishery. ”

“ Seals are known to kill a great many salmon in Penobscot Bay and the lower river. They enter and leave the weirs and traps without difficulty and cause great annoyance to the fishermen. When a seal enters a net, the fish are frightened and usually become meshed ”

“ And he concludes his discussion of the subject, in § 2373, by affirming the exemption of the coast fishery, and pointing out the distinction in this regard between the coast fishery and what he calls the great fishery, for cod, whales, or seals, as follows: 'The privilege of exemption from capture, which is generally acquired by fishing vessels plying their industry near the coasts, is not extended in any country to ships employed on the high sea in what is called the great fishery, such as that for the cod, for the whale or the sperm whale, or for the seal or sea calf. ”

“ But it is estimated that the hunter secures only one out of three or four such seals killed in the open sea, and on this basis the enormous destruction of seal life by the poachers, in proportion to the sealskins which are furnished for the purposes of commerce through their operations, may be easily estimated. Every seal-skin placed upon the market by them represents the destruction of six or eight seals—an utterly unjustifiable inroad into the vitality of the herds, already small enough as a source of supply for the world. ”

“ The supply of timber seems almost inexhaustible. Ducks and other wild fowl are numerous. Whales and seals abound, as well as excellent fish of various kinds. We were tolerably successful in shooting and fishing. I may enliven this part of my address by reading Dr Hector’s animated account of one of our seal hunts, in which, however, we were not fortunate. ‘On one occasion,’ he states, ‘the chase of five seals with the steam pinnace of the ‘Clio’ in the waters of Milford Sound affords a novel and exciting sport. ”

“ I am sure that, unless a vast abundance of good fishing-ground was near by, no such congregation of seal-life as is that under discussion on the Seal Islands could exist. The whole eastern half of Bering Sea, in its entirety, is a single fish-spawning bank, nowhere deeper than fifty to seventy-five fathoms, averaging, perhaps, forty; also, there are great reaches of fishing-shoals up and down the northwest coast, from and above the Straits of Fuca, bordering the entire southern, or Pacific coast, of the Aleutian Islands. ”

“ The book is chiefly concerned with fisheries for edible fish. I have included a chapter on whale fisheries, since whale oil is now used largely in the manufacture of such food substances as lard substitute and margarine. No account of seal “fishing” is included, as seals are not fished but are generally hunted on shore. I have not included fisheries for pearls, sponges or seaweed. To its cost the nation knows little of the methods and organization and achievements of the Fishing Industry. ”

“ They go to sea every few days. If the sun is out they stay in the sea. They make long journeys, too, just as the mother seals have to do, because a seal needs at least thirty pounds of fish a day to keep in good condition. ”

“ Cod are present here the year around, perhaps the best fishing taking place in May and June, when the fish are found in about 40 fathoms They go into deeper water, about 60 fathoms, in August and into 100 fathoms as the cold weather advances. This Seal Island ground may be considered essentially as a feeding ground for the cod, which seem to appear here after the spawning season is over, to fatten upon the crabs and mollusks living on the bottom and on the herring and other small fish that swim back and forth In the tide rips. ”

“ All these banks are breeding places of the most valued of our food fishes—the cod, haddock, cusk, hake, pollock, and halibut—and each in its proper season furnishes fishing ground where are taken many other important species of migratory and pelagic food fishes as well as those named here. It is probable that no other fishing area equaling this in size or in productivity exists anywhere else in the world, and the figures of the total catch taken from it must show an enormous poundage and a most imposing sum representing the value of its fishery. ”

“ Accordingly, fishing in the open seas, they turn their attention to the very subjects—the female seals and the young animals—which, in view of the facility with which they may be secured and of the great injury to the herds which would result from their systematic destruction, the United States government has wisely placed upon the restricted list. ”

“ If we stay here, though, our attention will become more acute; for they begin to loom up in importance as a food supply.
The seal, on the contrary, are growing less in numbers, although great care has been taken not to frighten them away. Also, we have not lately attempted fishing on the reef, for fear of reducing their food. ”

“ There is the best evidence that the poachers confine themselves almost entirely to this commercially-precious female portion of the herds. It is reported that, out of twenty-five thousand sealskins which resulted from the work of those engaged in this disgraceful traffic, not one male skin could be found. This may be easily understood, for the male seal is strong and alert, and no hunter can get within shooting distance of him, as he can generally escape from the fastest boat pursuing him. ”

“ This little spike of rock was a foot or so above the water, even when the sea swelled up towards it—it being not yet high tide—and as it projected out like a bowsprit, there was nothing underneath it for the seal's hind feet to get a hold on, so that everything had to be done by a first leap up from the sea. This leap the seal made over and over again, shooting up sometimes almost like a salmon—his hind feet alone remaining in the water—and grasping the hard little triangle between his fore-arms, or flippers, so as to assist the impetus by hoisting himself upon it. ”

“ The measures taken by the government of the United States for the regulation and preservation of the Bering Sea seal fisheries were intended to avert this result, and, being framed in accordance with the views of men who had knowledge of the conditions to be met, they were well fitted to accomplish that purpose. ”

“ If the fish is caught by the tail, it is then turned head foremost and swallowed whole. They also feed under water and swallow with as much ease as in the air, but in a different manner, which is to open its mouth partially.
Seals are animals of passage; when on their travels or migrations, vast droves are [66] seen moving along through the openings of the ice, swimming with their heads always out of the water. They are very timid, seldom sleeping above five minutes at a time. Three of the common seal were taken a few years since on our coast in a net ”

“ When the herds enter Bering Sea, about the end of June, nearly every female seal is with young. After the long voyage of two or three thousand miles through the heavy, boisterous waters of the North Pacific, they are naturally tired when they reach these breeding-grounds, and iii a condition in which they are an easy prey to the unscrupulous hunter. Even if every such female seal which is killed were secured, it is clear that two seal lives would be destroyed for the sake of a single sealskin. ”

“ The wholesale fishery is carried on by small fishing smacks or “bangers,” as the fishermen popularly term them, each of which is constructed with a large deep well, into which the fresh sea-water is allowed to enter by means of a grating. This is for a double purpose, viz., to keep the fish alive after taken as long as possible, and also to enable the cod-smack to remain at sea as long as may suffice to catch a good supply of fish before proceeding to that part of the coast where there may be a market for them. ”

“ These little seals that we see are, of course, nothing but the common harbor seal; but when the big fur-seal herds pass up the coast the Indians get a good many of them in that way, though many are killed by paddling up close to them when they are asleep on the water and spearing them. A long line is attached to the lance, the head of which is barbed, so that it will not draw out; and at length they pull the seal up close to the canoe and kill it, either with a club or by spearing it again. Seal meat and seal oil are pretty important parts of the native food supply on this coast ”

“ Carl and Christian, my two Danish recruits from Upernavik, have been setting nets for seal. These nets are made in the Greenland fashion, of seal-skin thongs, with large meshes. They are kept in a vertical position under the ice by stones attached to their lower margin; and the unsuspecting seal, swimming along in pursuit of a school of shrimps for a meal, or seeking a crack or hole in the ice to catch a breath of air, strikes it and becomes entangled in it, and is soon drowned. Most of the winter seal-fishing of Greenland is done in this manner ”

“ We killed one seal and a number of widgeons, and then returned home. We did not see any seals on shore, but we saw great numbers in the water. I suppose, as it was a fine day, they were all out fishing. There must be great numbers of fish in these harbours to supply so many seals, but we have not yet found out how to catch them. All the fish we have got as yet we have picked up amongst the seaweed and stones on the beach at low water. During the last day or two all the snow has disappeared from the mountains. I hope we shall have some fine weather yet before the winter sets in. ”

“ They must be protected during the entire season if their young are not to perish with them. They live only upon fish, and must therefore go to the water for their food. The large fishing-banks on which the Pribylov seals must depend for subsistence are from thirty to sixty miles distant from the islands, and if the females are killed by the hunter there while feeding, the pup left on the island, which does not become able to take care of itself until after September, loses its protector and dies. ”

“ For the supply of sealskin fur the markets of the world are at the present day all but entirely dependent upon the Bering Sea fisheries. The vast rookeries which at one time existed in the Southern hemisphere in Patagonia, in the Falkland Islands, in Kerguelen Land, and in numbers of islands in various parts of the Antarctic seas have been hunted nearly out of existence. Seals are practically unknown where three-quarters of a century ago they were to be counted by millions. ”

“ Most people know that seal fisheries exist, but few have any idea of their extent. The ice-fields of Newfoundland and Labrador produce more than anywhere else; but Greenland, Northern Europe, the seas around Jan Mayen, Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen produce also a great harvest, and the fur-bearing seals of the Aleutian Islands must not be forgotten. Sealing on the east coast of Greenland is entirely in the hands of natives, but the industry in other places is chiefly prosecuted by Europeans and Americans. ”

“ The business of fur-seal catching is carried on to some extent in the North Pacific and in Bering Sea by sealers from Victoria, but the returns show it to be a decreasing industry, as well as one causing friction with the United States. Indeed, no department of national life has caused more continual trouble between the two peoples than the fisheries, owing to different laws regarding fish protection, and the constant invasion by each of the territorial waters of the other. ”

“ But if a seal or a fish must come to the land or to narrow rivers to spawn, it follows that man possesses the power to determine whether spawning shall continue or not, doesn't it?"
"Yes," agreed Colin, "I suppose it does."
"And if you protect the seals, the herd will increase."
"It ought to."
"Very good. That is just the work we are doing here. The salmon come into fresh water to spawn—just like shad and a number of other species of fish—and when you kill a salmon just about to ascend the river, you destroy at the same time the thousands of eggs she bears." ”