Part 10 (2/2)
”Do they fast all summer, too, like the sea-catches?”
”No,” was the reply ”No need for it They go to sea every few days If the sun is out they stay in the sea Theyjourneys, 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 All the nearby fishi+ng-grounds have been exhausted”
”I suppose the different colors show the different ages?” the boy suggested
”Exactly,” the agent answered ”That's ihing between five and eight and a half pounds That means only those of hs just about four pounds and that of a four-year-old male eleven or twelve”
”How about the two-year-old cow seals? You said that only the yearlings a the females were here”
”The cow seals never coo for the first time to the rookeries in their second year”
”I should think it would be easy enough then to 'cut out' a herd,” the boy said ”I could pretty nearly do it myself”
”Obviously! Without any trouble!” was the reply ”But you've got to go slow”
”Why?” the boy queried
”If a seal is hurried he gets heated You remember I told you how little they can stand If a seal is killed after being heated, fur coo on I have to tally those that are knocked down”
”I thought you were going to drive some!” said Colin in a disappointed tone, as they turned away fro a well-beaten road
”The drive started three hours ago and h to make seals travel You can drive as fast as a mile an hour, but lots will be left on the road to die from the exertion Yet the same seals will swim hundreds of miles in a day”
”But what can you do, then, on a warht?”
”No seals here on a warm day,” was the immediate answer ”You saw all those thousands of holluschickie on the hauling-grounds? If the sun were to come out now, in half an hour there wouldn't be a seal on the entire flat All disappear into the sea Absolutely!”
”What is that group over there?” asked Colin, pointing to a sh fraent answered ”The killing-grounds are always near the salt-houses What's that? The sht, when I first came here You can't kill seals in the same place year after year and just leave the flesh to rot without having a frightful odor One gets used to it after a while”
”It seeue or so!”
”No,” was the reply, ”it has never caused any sickness here Then the drive is small nohat it used to be Time hen three or four thousand seals would be driven, where we only take a couple of hundred now Fallen off terribly! Fifty years ago, every available inch of all the beach was rookery, settled as thick as in the rookery you saw just now The holluschickie were here in uncounted rass, show the soil matted with fine hair and fur where the seals shed their coats for hundreds of years Now a few scattered rookeries are all that re again?” the boy asked
The agent shook his head
”I'overnreeretfully ”It would take thirty or forty years Yet it would be worth it You see,” he continued, ”this is absolutely the only place in the world where the true Alaskan fur seal--the sea bear, as it used to be called, because it isn't a seal at all--can be found The fur seals on the Russian islands are a different species Those on the japanese islands are different from both”
”You say a fur seal isn't a seal at all?” asked Colin ”What's the difference?”
”Not the sa to the saroup of animal They look differently Their habits are unlike Oh, they're dissimilar in every way”
”Just how?” asked Colin curiously