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n Thirty miles off the eastern coast of the KamchatkanPeninsula lie the Commander Islands, the largest of which, at about sixty milesnlong and nine miles wide, is Bering Island. It is named after the Russiannexplorer Vitus Bering, who led two expeditions off Kamchatka that mapped vast,npreviously unexplored, areas of the northern Pacific Ocean. The naturalist onnthe second expedition was Georg Wilhelm Steller, a German zoologist, botanistnand physician, who joined Bering at Okhotsk in March 1740.
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nTwo ships, the StnPeter and St Paul departed for Kamchatka in September of the samenyear, and travelled eastwards until they sighted Alaska in 1741, and landed onnor near Kayak Island, making them the first Europeans to land on the North-westncoast of America. Bad weather had separated the ships and even worse conditionsndrove Bering and Steller, on board the St Peter, back towards thenRussian mainland.
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nThe conditions on the voyage home were truly horrific and thenSt Peter limped along the Aleutians until it made landfall on the larger of thenCommander Islands, which was mistakenly thought to be mainland Kamchatka.nStranded there, twenty-eight men died of scurvy (Bering also died and for manynyears it was believed that he, too, had succumbed to scurvy but modern researchnhas shown that it is almost certain that he died from heart failure), Stellerntried to get the crew to eat leaves and berries to stave off the scurvy but hisnattempts were rejected by the officers and only Steller and his assistant wereneven slightly free from the effects of scurvy. In spite of the horrendousnconditions, Steller continued to record his observations of the wildlife he saw and many species were subsequently named for him, including a jay, anneider duck, a sea-lion, an otter and a sea-eagle.
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| Steller’s Sea-Cow |
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nHowever, Steller’s name isnindelibly associated with another creature – Steller’s Sea-Cow. With thenexception of the Arctic Fox, the higher fauna of the Commander Islands arenaquatic mammals and the most substantial of these was the Sea-Cow, a speciesnrelated to the manatee and the dugong, but far, far larger than these southernncousins and, until Steller made his observations, an unknown animal. Steller’snSea-Cow grew up to thirty feet in length and ten tons in weight and lived innherds in the marine shallows, where it browsed incessantly on seaweed, raisingnits head above the surface every four or five minutes to breathe.
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| Steller’s drawing of the Sea-Cow |
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nThey werenslow-moving beasts, very docile and inoffensive, with inch-thick, almostnarmour-like, dark grey-brown skin (‘almost impervious to an ax or to thenpoint of a hook’, as Steller wrote), with front flippers not unlike anseal’s that ended with something like a claw or blunt horse’s hoof, thenunderside of which were covered with coarse, brush-like bristles, about half anninch in length. These arm-like limbs were used to swim in water, to propel thenanimal along the bottom of the sea, to climb and pull itself over rocks, to dignand uproot seaweed, and to embrace their partners during mating.
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| Steller’s Sea-Cow – drawing |
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nSteller’sndescription of the exterior and interior of the Sea-Cow is exceptionallyndetailed and includes an account of how easy it is to hunt the beasts, whichnare usually so intent on feeding that a boat or swimmer can easily approachnthem. They were harpooned or speared with barbed hooks and it could take thirtynor forty men to pull the body ashore but Steller records that if an animal wasnhooked, the rest of the herd would come to its assistance and try to overturnnthe boat or break the ropes with the bulk of their bodies. The flesh tasted likengood beef and was, according to Steller ‘excellent’, that of the calvesnlike veal or lard, and if salted it was not unlike corned beef. Steller saysnthat there are such great numbers of these animals around the Commander Islands ‘… theynwould suffice to support all the inhabitants of Kamchatka’.
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| Steller’s Sea-Cow skeleton |
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nAnd that wasnthe problem. After the remnants of the St Peter were fashioned into anmake-shift ship and the remainder of its crew eventually made their way back tonthe mainland, the reports were published and other ships followed thendescriptions therein and went in search of furs of the Arctic foxes, fur seals,nsea-otters and sea-lions. The crews of these vessels took full advantage of thenplentiful supplies of the delicious Sea-Cows, stocking their holds with meat forntheir voyages. It was also found that the sub-cutaneous fat could be renderedninto a fine oil that burned without smoke or offensive smell, and did not gonoff in warmer weather; the hides of the animals were used to cover boats.
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nContrary to Steller’s description, the population of the Sea-Cows was alreadynquite low, to the point of endangerment, as other environmental effects werencausing a rapid decline in numbers but the impact of the new hunters wasncatastrophic. Within thirteen years of their discovery, the Steller’s Sea-Cownhad been hunted to extinction.
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| A E Norderskiold – Voyage of the Vega |
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nAdolf Nordenskiöld, in his Voyage of the Vega,nwrote that the Sea-Cow had been seen in the waters of the nearby island of Attunas late as 1780, but this is disputed as he was basing his information on reportsnfrom Aleutian natives, who used terms that they also used to describe certainnspecies of toothed whales.
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| I discovered this animal and all I got was this lousy stamp. |
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nSteller is barely remember these days, other thannthrough the creatures that carry his name, whereas Mr Bering managed,nposthumously, to have an island, a sea, a strait, a land-bridge and a glaciernnamed after him (and the Commander Islands are named in recognition of hisnnaval rank). I suspect that there may be a moral in this, somewhere, but I’mnblowed if I can think what it could be.
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