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Seals — Destruction to Fish and Nets — Shooting Seal in River and Sea —
Habits of Seals — Anecdotes — Seal and Dog — Seal and Keeper — Catching
Seals — Anecdotes.
Seals, which a few years
ago abounded along this coast, are now comparatively rare, and before long
will be entirely banished to the undisturbed and unfrequented rocks of the
more northern islands. The salmon-fishers on the coast wage a constant war
against them, in consequence of the great damage they do to their
stake-nets, which are constantly torn and injured by these powerful
animals. Nor is the loss they occasion to the salmon-fishers confined to
the fish which they actually consume or to the nets that they destroy, for
a seal-hunting along the coast in the neighbourhood of the stake-nets
keeps the salmon in a constantly disturbed state, and drives the shoals of
fish into the deep water, where they are secure from the nets. There is
consequently a constant and deadly feud between the fishermen and the
seals, which has almost totally expelled the latter from this part of the
coast. An old seal has been known to frequent a particular range of
stake-nets for many years, escaping all attacks against him, and becoming
both so cunning and so impudent that he will actually take the salmon out
of the nets (every turn of which he becomes thoroughly intimate with)
before the face of the fishermen, and retiring with his ill-gotten booty,
adds insult to injury by coolly devouring it on some adjoining point of
rock or shoal, taking good care, however, to keep out of reach of
rifle-ball or slug. Sometimes, however, he becomes entangled in the nets,
and is drowned, but this seldom happens to a full-grown seal, who easily
breaks through the strongest twine if he can find no outlet. From the
shore opposite Cromarty I one day saw a large seal swim into the
stake-nets and take out a salmon, with which he retired to a small rock
above the water, and there devoured it entirely in a very short space of
time.
Sometimes at high-water and
when the river is swollen a seal comes in pursuit of salmon into the
Findhorn, notwithstanding the smallness of the stream and its rapidity. I
was one day, in November, looking for wild ducks near the river, when I
was called to by a man who was at work near the water, and who told me
that some "muckle beast" was playing most extraordinary tricks in the
river. He could not tell me what beast it was, but only that it was
something "no that canny." After waiting a short time, the riddle was
solved by the appearance of a good-sized seal, into whose head I instantly
sent a cartridge, having no balls with me. The seal immediately plunged
and splashed about in the water at a most furious rate, and then began
swimming round and round in a circle, upon which I gave him the other
barrel, also loaded with one of Eley's cartridges, which quite settled the
business, and he floated rapidly away down the stream. I sent my retriever
after him, but the dog, being very young and not come to his full
strength, was baffled by the weight of the animal and the strength of the
current, and could not land him; indeed, he was very near getting drowned
himself in consequence of his attempts to bring in the seal, who was still
struggling. I called the dog away, and the seal immediately sank. The next
day I found him dead on the shore of the bay with (as the man who skinned
him expressed himself) " twenty-three pellets of large hail in his craig."
Another day, in the month
of July, when shooting rabbits on the sandhills, a messenger came from the
fishermen at the stake-nets, asking me to come in that direction, as the "muckle
sealgh" was swimming about, waiting for the fish to be caught in the nets,
in order to commence his devastation.
I accordingly went to them,
and having taken my observations of the locality and the most feasible
points of attack, I got the men to row me out to the end of the stake-net,
where there was a kind of platform of netting, on which I stretched
myself, with a bullet in one barrel and a cartridge in the other. I then
directed the men to row the boat away, as if they had left the nets. They
had scarcely gone three hundred yards from the place when I saw the seal,
who had been floating, apparently unconcerned, at some distance, swim
quietly and fearlessly up to the net. I had made a kind of breastwork of
old netting before me, which quite concealed me on the side from which he
came. He approached the net, and began examining it leisurely and
carefully to see if any fish were in it; sometimes he was under and
sometimes above the water. I was much struck by his activity while
underneath, where I could most plainly see him, particularly as he twice
dived almost below my station, and the water was clear and smooth as
glass.
I could not get a good shot
at him for some time; at last, however, he put up his head at about
fifteen or twenty yards' distance from me; and while he was intent on
watching the • boat, which was hovering about waiting to see the result of
my plan of attack, I fired at him, sending the ball through his brain. He
instantly sank without a struggle, and a perfect torrent of blood came up,
making the water red for some feet round the spot where he lay stretched
out at the bottom. The men immediately rowed up, and taking me into the
boat, we managed to bring him up with a boathook to the surface of the
water, and then, as he was too heavy to lift into the boat (his weight
being 378 lbs.) we put a rope round his flippers, and towed him ashore. A
seal of this size is worth some money, as, independently of the value of
his skin, the blubber (which lies under the skin, like that of a whale)
produces a large quantity of excellent oil. This seal had been for several
years the dread of the fishermen at the stake-nets, and the head man at
the place was profuse in his thanks for the destruction of a beast upon
whom he had expended a most amazing quantity of lead. He assured me that
£100 would not repay the damage the animal had done. Scarcely any two
seals are exactly of the same colour or marked quite alike, and seals
frequenting a particular part of the coast become easily known and
distinguished from each other.
There is a certain part of
the coast near the sandhills where I can generally get a shot at a seal. I
have frequently killed them, but seldom get the animal, as the water is
deep at the place and the current strong. The spot I allude to is where
the sea, at the rise of the tide, flows into a large basin through a
narrow channel, the deep part of which is not much more than a hundred
yards in width. If there are any seals hunting this part of the coast,
they come into this basin at every tide in search of fish, or to rest in
the quiet water. My plan is to be at the place before the tide has begun
to rise, and then, having made up a breastwork of sand and weed, I wait
for the appearance of the seals, who frequently, before the tide has risen
much, come floating in, with their heads above the water. If they do not
perceive my embankment, I am nearly certain of a shot, but if they do,
they generally keep over on the opposite side of the channel, watching it
so closely that on the least movement on my part they instantly dive. So
quick are their movements in the water, that I find it impossible to
strike a seal with ball if he is watching me, for quick and certain as is
a detonating gun they are still quicker, and dive before the ball can
reach them As for a flint gun, it has not a chance with them. Within the
memory of some of the people here, seals were very numerous about this
part of the coast, and were constantly killed by the farmers for the sake
of their oil, and with no weapons except their hoes or spades, with which
they attacked them when lying on the sandbanks. It is but seldom that I
see them resting on the shore, but occasionally watch them in that
situation, as they either lay sleeping on the banks or play about, which,
notwithstanding their unwieldy appearance, they sometimes do. At other
times they engage in the most determined battles with each other, fighting
like bulldogs, and uttering loud mournful cries. In waiting for seals,
attention must be paid more to the state of the tide than to the time of
day, although certainly, like all wild animals, they appear less on their
guard at early dawn than at any other hour. The seal generally takes the
same course every day at the same height of tide, and basks on the same
rock or sandbank during low-water. They show themselves much less in cold
and stormy weather than when it is warm and fine. Knowing this, and having
seen a seal show himself in a particular channel or basin of the sea, you
may be nearly sure of seeing him there the next day about the same height
of tide.
The young appear about
July. When first born they are nearly white, and the hair is rough and
long: they gradually become spotted and of a darker colour, like the old
ones. The very young ones that I have seen here were probably born about
the rocks and caves of the Ross-shire coast. Some rocks off the coast near
Gordonston were till very lately the constant resort of seals, but owing
to workmen having been employed there of late years in building a
lighthouse and other works, they very seldom rest on them at present. They
were also much frightened by a plan for catching them adopted by some of
the workmen. Observing that the seals when disturbed tumbled off the rocks
in great confusion, two fellows, during low-water, fixed firmly into the
rock several strongly barbed iron hooks, with the points turned upwards.
This done, the first time that they saw any great assemblage of seals
basking on the rock, near their hooks, they got into a boat and rowed
quickly up to the place, firing guns and making all the noise that they
could. The poor seals, in their hurry to escape, came tumbling over the
side of the rocks where the hooks were placed. Several were much torn and
wounded, and one was held till the men got up and despatched him. This
cruel proceeding had the effect of keeping them from the place for a
considerable time afterwards. Notwithstanding the great timidity of the
seals, they have immense strength in their jaws, and, indeed, great
muscular power in every part of their body. A farmer near the coast here,
seeing several basking on the sandbanks, and not being possessed of a gun,
hit upon what seemed to him the capital plan of setting a strong bull-dog
at them, hoping that the dog would hold one of them till he could get up
and kill it with his spade. The dog reached the seals before they could
get into the water, and attacked one of the largest. The seal, however,
with a single bite completely smashed the head of the dog, and flinging
him to one side, scuffled away into the water, leaving the farmer not much
inclined to attempt seal-hunting again.
My man, one day while we
were waiting in our ambuscade for the seals, gave me an account of a
curious adventure he had with one near the same spot a few years back.
He was lying at daybreak
ensconced close to the water's edge, waiting in vain for a shot at some
grey geese that frequented the place at the time, when he saw a
prodigiously large seal floating quietly along with the tide, not thirty
yards from the shore. Donald did not disturb the animal, but went home
early in the day, and, having cast some bullets for his gun and made other
preparations, retired to rest. The next morning he was again at the shore,
well concealed, and expecting to see the seal pass with the flowing tide;
nor was he disappointed. About the same period of the rise of the tide,
the monster appeared again. Donald cocked his gun, and crouched down
behind his ambuscade of sea-weed and shingle, ready for the animal's head
to appear within shot This soon happened, but instead of swimming on with
the tide the seal came straight to the shore, not above ten yards from
where his mortal enemy was lying concealed. The water was deep to the very
edge, and the great unwieldy beast clambered up the steep beach, and was
very soon high and dry, a few yards from the muzzle of Donald's gun, which
was immediately pointed at him, but from the position in which the seal
was lying he could not get a shot at the head, the only part where a wound
would prove immediately fatal. Donald waited some time, in hopes that the
animal would turn or lift his head, but at last losing patience, he gave a
low whistle, which had the immediate effect of making the animal lift its
head to listen. The gun was immediately discharged, and the ball passed
through the seal's neck, close to the head. Up ran Donald, and flinging
down his gun, seized one of the immense fins or flippers of the beast,
which he could scarcely span with both hands. The seal was bleeding like a
pig at the throat, and quite stunned at the same time, but though it did
not struggle, it showed a kind of inclination to move towards the water,
which obliged Donald to stick his heels into the ground, and to lean back,
holding on with all his strength to prevent the escape of the enormous
beast. "'Deed, sir," said Donald, "if you believe me, he was as big as any
Hieland stirk in the parish." Well, there the two remained for above an
hour — motionless, but always straining against each other, Donald's
object being to keep the seal in the same place till the tide had receded
to some distance, and then to despatch him how he best could. Many a
wistful glance he cast at his gun, which he had so rashly flung down
without reloading; the said gun being, as he said, "but a bit trifling
single-barrelled thing, lent him by a shoemaker lad, who whiles took a
shot along the shore" — in other words, who poached more hares than he
made shoes.
After they had remained in
this uncomfortable position for a long time, till Donald's hands had
become perfectly cramped and stiff, the seal suddenly seemed to recover
himself, and turning round to see what was holding him, looked the man
full in the face, with a bewildered air of astonishment; then seeing what
kind of enemy he had to deal with, he gave a tremendous shake, casting
Donald off like a "bit rag," as he expressed it, and leaving him prostrate
in the pool of blood that had come out of the bullet-hole, moved slowly
into the water, and quietly went down to the bottom. Donald, in utter
disgust and wretchedness at losing his prize, walked straight home, and
went to bed to sleep off his disappointment. The next morning, however, on
considering over the matter, he came to the conclusion that the seal must
be dead, and would probably, as the tide ebbed, be grounded on one of the
adjacent sandbanks; so he returned to the bay at low water, and the first
thing he saw was his seal lying dead on a sandbank, and looking like a
cobble keel uppermost. And a perfect argosy did it turn out, producing
more pints of oil and a larger skin than ever seal produced before or
since.
I have seen these animals
caught by placing a strong net, made for the purpose, across a deep and
narrow channel through which they escaped when frightened off a sandbank,
where they were in the habit of resting at low-water. We quietly laid the
net down, fixing it at each end with an anchor; we then rowed round to the
bank, and away went the seals, splattering over the wet sands into the
channel; we came after them as hard as we could row. At first, when they
struck the net, some turned back, but frightened on by our shouts, they
made a rush at the net. We got to one end of it, detached the anchor, and
began to haul it round, so as to enclose the seals; then began a noise and
clamour which surpassed anything of the kind I ever heard — the seals
splashing and snorting like drowning horses, while we were all straining
every nerve to row round the boat, with the weight and struggles of
seventeen seals, large and small, against us; my crew of six Highlanders,
shouting, cursing and swearing, and encouraging each other in Gaelic —
presently a more furious shout from the leader of the crew announced that
something unexpected had happened, and looking round, we saw that thirteen
of the seals had escaped, partly by jumping over the net, and partly by
breaking through a weak part of it. One very large seal, who we afterwards
found had left her young one within the net, returned in her maternal
fondness to rescue it; she swam round, and finding her offspring in the
midst of all the confusion, swam away again from the net, leading the way
for the little one to escape also. I snatched up my gun and fired, killing
her on the spot, so that she fell back into the net, and we managed to
land her and the other four, and despatched them, despite their struggles,
to the great joy of the salmon-fishers of the Cromarty Firth. At another
time, several years ago, I was put into rather a dilemma by one of these
animals: we had shot a three-parts grown seal as she was asleep on an
isolated rock. Having got her into our very frail and crazy boat, we
proceeded towards the land in high spirits, but before we were half-way
across, our seal, who had only been stunned, the shot having merely grazed
her head, came to life, and finding herself in so unwanted a position,
commenced an indiscriminate attack on everything in her way: our legs
being more so than anything else, we had to throw our feet up on the
gunwale of the boat, and despatch her how we could, as she was tearing
away, with immense strength, at the woodwork within her reach, and we
expected that she would have made a hole in the bottom of the boat. We
managed, however, with some difficulty to stun her again with the handle
of an oar, and got safe to land with our prize, the first of the kind I
had ever captured. |
