The Seattle Star Newspaper, May 9, 1914, Page 15

MILLIONS OF SEALS WERE SLAUGHTERED DURING TRAGIC YEARS IN NORTHERN SEAS} ALASKANS GET LOTS OF THEM Northern Waters Paradise for Hunter of Wild Fowl of All Sorts. SLAUGHTER IS GREAT Ptarmigan, Varieties of Grouse, Ducks, Geese, Shore Birds Go North in Summer. .. The hunter for wild game will find Alaska a joy and delight, a land where he may spend day after day in the profitable pursuit of his chos en sport, with surprising results, for Alaska Is the great breeding ground | of the water birds which annually migrate south in the winter. Ducks—thousands them—re- sort to the open tundras and val leys of the far North during the breeding season geese, swans and a host of othe shore birds, such as snipe and sand-pipers. Many Are Killed The annual slaughter of these birds in their southern haunts has in the past few years greatly thio ned their numbers, but great drove of them are still brought to rth each year by gunners in the North. Three varieties of ptarmigan tn f oO habit all the higher mountain tops | of the Coast and interior, and the tundras of Bering sea and Arctic coast, including all the Aleutian is! ands, They gather in immense flocks in the fall, at which time the lose their brown coloring and as sume a protective white, as do the bares and ermines. Plenty of Grouse Five specimens of grouse, known as the Alaska spruce grouse, the gray ruffled grouse, the Sooty grouse, the sharp-tailed and the Franklin grouse, are timber birds— and one or more of these varieties is found generally over the territory in such localities. Countless numbers of gulls and other sea-birds breed on the tun dras of Bering sea and the rocky coast islands. As scavengers of the sea, they are worthy of protection from extinction, and seven reserva: tions to prevent this have been set aside for this purpose. The one be tween the mouths of the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers is the largest. The other six are small isolated !s: ands. They are located as follow: The islands of St. Matthew, Hail and Pinnacle, Walru Otter and Bogoslof, in Bering sea; Fire island, Chisik and Egg islands, tn Cook tn- let; St. Lazaria island, in Sitka sound, and a large tract on the Yukon delta, between the mouths of Alaska Forest Service Tongass National Forest—W. G. Weigle, forest supervisor, ehl- wea; Chugach National Forest—T. Hunt, deputy forest superviser, dova. Alaska Light House Service jeadly, superintendent, Ketchikan. AFTER DUCKS? /ALASKA DOES | | curlews the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, | HER TRADING. WITH SEATTLE |Large Quantity of Supplies | Sent North by Local Firms } Every Year CARS & TOOTHPICKS {Nearly $8,000,000 in Exports Went There From This Port in 1913. } You have often met the man with the low, abbreviated forehead and eyes set close together, who, with a swagger, demands to know wherefore we concern ourselves with Alaska, “What's the idea? Why all this | hue and cry over Alaska?” he asks. | “Yes, | know we get some gold |from there, but what benefit does Seattle get? Show me!” Read this, then, Mr. Lowbrow, and ponder over it a while Food for Thought Seattle in 1913 exported to Alas. ka supplies and goods of one sort and another amounting to $7,759, 243, AND 90% OF THIS | MOUS SUM WAS PAID TO SEAT: |TLE'S MERCHA ! The author- | ities for this statement are th® ev toms officials at the Seattle offic | Thi# money bought articles vary wheels to tooth- ing from wagon ple and including automobiles, typewriter liquor, tobac and all the things to eat, wear, and use that folks in Alaska’s modern | cities demand and need Interesting Figures Here are just a few of the thou }sand and one things the 1 bound fleet loaded here last Oatmeal 6 Oats . IPrepar 4 dreadstuffs for use Bread and biscuits Wheat flour | Candles Baking powder ..... } | Coffee ...-.aeeereers | BESES . 2. ne ccoes oe os doz. | Dynamite Jan vis Iba. | Canned salmon ..... Ths. | Rubber and | shoes s+. 51,652. pre. |Leather boots | shoes ..... < prs. |Canned beet . Ibs |wresh beef .........9,755,390 Ibs $478,840 | Alaska Steamboat Inspection Geérge H. Whitney, inspector of hulls, Juneau; Peter G. Peltrich, inspector of boilers, Juneau; Thom- and Thomas E. Kell, inspector of boilers, St. Michaels, Pure Milk That Is What You Get W Wit Pure Ice Cream fhen You Place Your Order Pure Milk Dairy We have built up a reputation in Seattle for furnish- ing our customers with none but the best who bought our products a year ago are buying them today—so are their friends and acquaintances Pure Cream h the ¢ The people 1514 Seventh Ave. Give Us Your Order PURE MILK DAIRY Telephone, Main 2545. money She The girl wa may or may cent, helpless animals Whether she knows it or had struggled ed by the government itself rocks of the Pribilofs? sealers. Male fur seals, “bulls,” are po lygamus, gathering around them ae many wives as they can control in the “rookeries” oe the shore. These family groups, forming the unit of rookery life, are catled “harems,” and ayerage 30 seals to seven years old, weigh 300 to 400 pounds, and are six feet long. “cow” wei only about 80 pounds three years old. Lively Youngsters. ‘The bulls arrive at the rookeries jearly in May, pick out the sites for their harems, and await the coming of the cow arriving gradually © ly in June, are ling with them the “pups” born in the early summer, They are eager, after the manner of the young, for a sight of the world. ‘The long, lazy summer days have been active ones for these young seals, who have had many things to wonder over and much to learn during the periods thelr mothers wore off at sea foraging for food. Swim at Six Weeks, At six weeks they first surprise themselves with the knowledge that they can swim almow as well as their elders, and when winter threatens them along in November they plunge away in great droves, with their parents aa pilots, for the unknown southland. In an- other month they throngs of tourists at the Cliff House and flapping playfully over the rocks and bars of numerous California coves and bays. The journey south {# more or less direct; the return in spring is slow and gradual, the herds lets- urely following the coast lines, even venturing into the byways of Puget Sound, where often on quiet spring days enterprising young seals, their curiosity aroused, follow rowboats for miles. The herds from two little Rus- sian-owned islands, known as the Commander group, lay their course for the south Japanese coast, when they depart for the winter. ee RTHWEST EVERYBODY LIKES PERFECTION Special Discounts to Trade on Application GOLDIE- Telephones 64 wer SOLE DISTRIBUTING COMPANY 604 SECOND AVE. KLENERT Seattle, Wash. AGENTS The slaughter, which goes on all summer, is simple but appalling. Twenty-five or 30 swarthy na- tives, armed with clubs, stalk like vbadows through the dim light of midnight and approach the quiet herds out on the rocks. Killed in Droves. Like a flock of sheep the crea- tures are aroused and driven in- land in droves of two or three thousand, For the most part only the young males—two, three and four years old-—are in this army This convenient possible be- going to its death arrangement is made cause these “bachelors,” as they known, herd by themselves. Be- cause of the seal's polygamous ten. dencies 29 out of 30 males may be slain without extinction threat- ening the race Slowly the gr drove, with many flaps and clumsy movements, goes inland heir skulls are like eg shells, A mod blow with a club and they drop. The work goes on, the Indians forming their task pidly, stoleally and steadily, Seals too young and small and the few mature bulls in the herd escape Almost aw soon as an animal drops a skilled workman begins re- moving the skin, which, with oth is packed into bundles and | away to London where are prepared for the fur | market see Gliding away in their canoes |from the bays of Vaneouver Island jand the vicinity of Cape Flattery, indians generations ago attacked the group. The bulle mature when | ILADY, with her sealskins, was a beautiful sight. viewed her reflection in the mirror of her boudoir figures that “his girl” might have the object pleased and that was all that counted with him not realize that her demand and the desire for costly raiment ed an industry which, during its history, caused a bitter tragedy in the rise and decline of the great sealing fleet, international disputes and the She does without discrimination the young and old, the males which summered in the waters ot the Bering Sea came so great that at last their industry through years of arbitration for the solution of the problem the amount paid for Alaska, from the legitimate sealing industry on the Pribilof | What of the habits of the gentle, affectionate and funny looking animals that die by thous- }ands yearly so the women of the world may have new muffs and coats? lonely little colony of Indian workers, government officials and their Wives on the bleak The | this work of the natives and a few | ing THE STAR—SATURDAY, MAY 9, 1914 She smiled with pleasure as Her father signed a check of big It was worth the of her heart’s desire. tart- ruthless slaughter of millions of inno- not know, perhaps, that for years these seal hunters killed and females, of the great herds it is a fact that the greed of these seal murderers be- was legislated out of existence after two nations And while the not, ands, Photo by Curtis & Miller, ily murdered for years by the men of the sealing fleets until the United States finally put an end to the slaughter and took over the contro! of the industry. which were leased to a company that grew to gigantic proportions and was finally supplant- And what of the It’s a subject of vital interest, for Seattle and Alaska have many dealings with the and killed stragglers from the seal herds on their migration to the south, exchanged the skins to/the Bering Sea. The North Amert traders for trinkets and supplies|can Commercial Co, holding a and instituted the custom of pe | lease on the Pribilofs, complained lagio sealing. bitterly because the annual catch Great Business. had eer dropped from 100,000 to about 20,000, White men enw ‘possibilities Uncle Sam, aroused,-began sets vessels, Rut because the years after the civil war sent ves-|Canadian fiag was at the mast- Struggle Begins. Russia claimed jurisdiction over in @ } and bears her first young when sels slong with the canoes, The|head of some of these poachers, }skins were loaded on these craft,|Great Britain stepped in and pre- are delighting | which best | and the business thrived. clone of the season In August, tak-| er and farther south went the ves-| which began following the herds/|cipitated an argument that lasted with resultant death, not only to| until 1892, when an arbitration the “bachelors,” but to the pups tribunal was agreed upon. The re- and femalen It was cruel work/ sult was a closed season and a and destructive, but it paid well | closed zone with a 66-mile radius jaround the {sland But the moth- The sealing fleet numbered 122|er seals swam far beyond Mor food seen in the great numbers tn July, yeesels in 18 18 |Sod gradually depart toward the | ere Bo it jth 94 the} and the slaughter Increased, Sixteenth district, Walter G. Dib-|as P. Deering, inspector of hulls, | “f ingpector, Ketchikan, and Milo! St. Michaels, Farth-| Peace at Last. International commissions sels until the spears were whizzing | wrestled with the tough problem through the California air; the | at intervals for years, and it was killing went on through the passes | not until 1911 that congress sound. of the Aleutian islands. Soon the|ed the death knell of the sealing females were not returning to|fleet, and confined ‘killing to the their young from foraging excur-| Pribilofe The leasing system was sions off the Pribllofs. In 1896| abandoned and the Industry h there were 20,000 dead pups on the| passed under the direct manage- breeding grounds. They astarved.iment of the government, FINE STRAWBERRIES GROWN UP NORTH 4 Photo by Curtis & Miller Bed of luscious strawberries, w Interesting results have come from crossing cultivated varieties of strawberries with the wild straw- berry of the Alaska coast region. Some of the hybrid plants have leaves and flower stalks that reach} quantities in the southeast part. a height of 18 inches and have pro Gooseberries do well along the duced berries measuring an inch} coast, but blackberries, dewberries, hich thrive in northern regions, The profusion of blueberries, huckleberries and currants — in Alaska has led to the suggestion that canning factories might be established, They grow in greatest and a quarter in the longest loganberries and grapes do not diameter, ve thrive, she] fight was on a herd that once numbered four or five million fur seals was almost annihilated | by the destructive work The United States in 20 years’ time received the big sum of $13,000,000, salmost twice | isl | | 1 Waiting for YOU at the OFBRAU Lunch commencing at 11 a. m Dinner commencing at 5 p. m ROSY PROPHECY BY ROOSEVELT 11 YEARS AGO He Rooe In an address here in 1903 “The men of my age who are in thie great audience will not old men befo Supper any time you find it con- venient to call. Ten High Class Entertainers Every Night And the check the waiter gives will be found unusually “reasonable.” ; THE HOFBRAU First Av. and Madison St. BARNETT & W. E. KEYES, Proprietors entire ee Union | predict ka, within the next will support century, large a population as do the entire Boandinavian pe: insula of Europe, the people of which, by their brains and Cc. H energi have left the mark on the face of Europ 1 predict that you will see Alaska, with her enormous KNEW THE CLASS PRECIPITATE 1 Y on Me have m drin! your new wi ee ee carers Mamma Camel—Shut up! Why,| Willie—I'm going to Sunday vigorous a race as any of America.” five weeks ago that|school now and I'm afraid {ft be stolen. t ————————————— ALA®KAN OFFICIALS Governor, Hon. J. F. A, Strong, Juneau; ex-officlo secretary of Alaska, Chas. E. Davidson, Juneau; delegate to congress, James Wickersham, Fairbanks; secretary to the governor, W. W. Juneau; surveyor general, Charles B. Davidson, Juneau; collector of customs, J. F. Pugh, Juneau. it wae only I gave you one. JUST THE LOCATION Alaska lies between latitude 61 degrees 20 minutes and 71 degrees 20 minutes north, and | | longitude 180 degrees west and | 175 degrees east ! East 870 PHONE... | Fitete 870 Pure °.” Healthful Invigorating A Strictly Family Beverage Used in Palaces of the Rich and Cottages of the Poor