Animals: Piping Seals

Last week five cutters of the U. S. Coast Guard put out from Pacific ports in the U. S. and plied northward. Aboard each, the ship’s musicians were prepared to play their most amusing sonatas not for the entertainment of their comrades, but over the ship’s sides and across the Arctic wastes.

When the musicians play, Pribilof fur seals—if any chance to be about—are piped to the surface. The cutter swings, the music sounds again; again the rising seals are noted. Presently the guardsmen have formed a very good idea of the size of the seal herd, a report on which is part of their duty.

The rest of their duty: To guard the seals on their annual submarine hegira to the Pribilof Islands from the depredations of any hunters except Indians in canoes, armed only with spears or harpoons (TIME, March 31, 1930).