THE BERING SEA CONTROVERSY. 663 



The British experts demanded this statement as a balm for the 

 wounded feelings of the pelagic sealer, and, such being the fact, the 

 American commissioners assumed that it could do no harm to place 

 it on record that he has conformed to the requirements of the law. 

 But from the American point of view this paragraph has a wider and 

 deeper meaning. We have seen in the opening paragraph that the 

 decline in the herd has been continuous and uninterrupted during 

 the period of the Paris regulations. It is admitted in paragraph 8 

 that the decrease for this same period has been a " notable " one. 

 The rate is specified in paragraph 7 as from " nine to twelve per 

 cent " during two years when the regulations were rigidly en- 

 forced. It only requires the climax of paragraph 10, asserting 

 the perfect observance of the regulations, to complete their con- 

 demnation. 



11. Pelagic sealing involves the killing of males and females alike, 

 without discrimination and in proportion as the two sexes coexist in the 

 sea. The reduction of the males effected on the islands causes an enhanced 

 proportion of females to be found in the pelagic catch; hence this propor- 

 tion, if it vary from no other cause, varies at least with the catch on the 

 islands. In 1895 Mr. A. B. Alexander, on behalf of the Government of 

 the United States, found 62.3 per cent of females in the catch of the Dora 

 Sieward in Bering Sea; and in 1896 Mr. Andrew Halkett, on behalf of the 

 Canadian Government, found 84.2 per cent in the catch of the same 

 schooner in the same sea. There are no doubt instances, especially in the 

 season of migration and in the course of the migrating herds, of catches 

 containing a different proportion of the two sexes. 



There are two ways and two alone whereby killing by man affects 

 the fur-seal herd — namely, killing on land and killing at sea. Land 

 killing has been vindicated in paragraph 9. We have here the ne- 

 cessary condemnation of pelagic killing expressed in equally full and 

 frank terms. Land killing takes only males and leaves an adequate 

 supply of bulls for breeding purposes; pelagic killing takes males and 

 females alike, the latter sex constituting 62 to 84 out of every 100 

 killed. 



It is not a vital matter that the female sex should be found to 

 predominate in the pelagic catch, except in so far as it proves the 

 falsity of the returns made so persistently by the Canadian sealing 

 captain that the sexes are taken in virtually equal proportion at 

 sea. The essential thing is that females are killed at all. That 

 three fourths of all the animals taken at sea (during one season 

 140,000 animals were so taken) are of this sex only emphasizes the 

 destructive nature of this industry. 



12. The large proportion of females in the pelagic catch includes not 

 only adult females that are both nursing and pregnant, but also young 

 seals that are not pregnant and others that have not yet brought forth 



