368 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



determine whether the hunters are fit to handle with sufficient skill the weapons by 

 means of which the seals are to be captured. These regulations, which are to remain 

 in force until they have been in whole or in part abolished or modified by common 

 agreement between the Government of the United States and Great Britain, are to 

 be submitted every five years to a new examination, so as to enable both governments 

 to consider whether, in the light of past experience, there is occasion for any modifi- 

 cation of them. 



The three prime points in the regulations are: the zone around the islands; the 

 closed time of three months injected into the middle of the sealing season, thus break- 

 ing it up; and the restriction of the use of firearms to the North Pacific. 



First as to the zone: If there was any one fact clearly established by the testi- 

 mony of the pelagic sealers themselves and official experts it was that in the summer 

 season great numbers of seals, and especially females, are found at long distances from 

 the islands of Bering Sea, distances two or three times greater than that of the pro- 

 tecting zone provided by the regulations. Now, as the object was to preserve the 

 fur seals, it is proper to assume that the tribunal, prompted by a desire to protect 

 them, and acting in good faith, established such a zone as they believed would prac- 

 tically prohibit the attack of the pelagic sealer; but if this were so, then mere amount 

 of distance was immaterial, and in view of the fact that incessant fogs brood over 

 the waters of Bering Sea during the summer season, rendering it difficult to tell when 

 a vessel is within or without a zone, the limit of which can not be marked, why not at 

 once adopt that natural and well-defined boundary line, the Aleutian chain? Just 

 here arises the question : When vessels are seized, whose word shall be accepted as 

 to the locality of seizure, the pelagic sealer's or the seizing officer's? Does not this 

 uncertainty, having as it does an important bearing on the question of conviction, 

 weaken the regulations restraining influence on pelagic sealing ? Aside from ques- 

 tions of protection it seems to me that this part of the decision will tend to increase 

 dispute and bitterness rather than to diminish it. 



The adoption of the closed time means the recognition on the part of the tribunal 

 that the destruction by the pelagic sealer has been excessive and the cutting off of 

 one month of the sealing season in Bering Sea clearly shows that it realized the dan- 

 ger to the herd from allowing sealing there. Why, then, was sealing not prohibited 

 altogether in those waters? Is the danger less in August and a portion of Septem- 

 ber? The seals are still going long distances from the islands and the sealer can 

 continue his work until stopped by the September gales. Bering Sea is the focal 

 point, the great massing ground of seal life, and the seals are more readily taken 

 there than anywhere else. In 1801 the catch of the Canadian fleet in the North Pacific 

 was a little over 21,000 seals, and before the modus vivendi could be enforced a por- 

 tion of the fleet sealed from three to five weeks on the American side of Bering Sea, 

 and with fewer vessels and with fewer small boats they took in that time as many 

 seals as they had previously secured in the Pacific. During the three years ending 

 with and including 1801 the Canadian fleet (and I only quote from Canadian records, 

 because they are so reliable) took, in five months, in the North Pacific, an average of 

 507 skins per vessel; with ten vessels less, they took in Bering Sea 727 skins per vessel 

 in about two and one-half months. 



The proposed regulations still allow at least five weeks' sealing in Bering Sea; 

 but, say the regulations, the hunters can only use spears in Bering Sea, thereby iuti- 



