41 -PAST AND FUTURE OF THE FUR SEAL. 



BY JOSEPH STAN LEY- BROWN. 



There are but two groups of far seals to furnish to the world its supply of seal 

 skins, the fur seal of the north and the fur seal of the south. 



When Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe in 1577-80 the Ar otocephalus, 

 or southern fur seal, was to be found. at not less than thirty localities, and their num- 

 bers aggegated millions. To-day the contributions of these southern waters are from 

 three resorts, and do not usually reach 15,000 skins aimually. 



When Vitus Bering, in 1741, was wrecked upon the Commander Islands, off the 

 coast of Kamchatka, and Pribilof searched out, in 1786-87, the group of islands in 

 Bering Sea that bears his name, there were discovered, not only tbe chief breeding- 

 grounds of the northern fur seal, Gallorhinus ur sinus, but some of the most superb 

 seal rookeries the world has ever known. It is questionable if mortal vision ever 

 rested upon more magnificent displays of amphibian life than were to be seen on the 

 island of St. Paul at the time of its discovery. To-day these subarctic resorts are 

 prostrate; their glory also has departed, and they furnish a home for but a mere 

 remnant of the seals that formerly swarmed in myriads along their rocky shores. 



For two years the hopes of thoughtful persons were high, that through the medium 

 of international negotiations and the deliberations of wise and able men the safety of 

 the fur seal would be at last secured. To-day, when the decision of the Paris tribunal 

 is common property, we find public opinion divided on the question as to whether the 

 practical application of the decision will preserve the fur seal as a commercial com- 

 modity. 



Characteristics of the seal. — The condition of affairs thus briefly outlined is all the 

 more deplorable when we consider the characteristics of the animal with which we are 

 dealing. It is a creature peculiarly adapted by its habits to man's management. It 

 occupies no territory needed, as were the buffalo's feeding-grounds, for the subsistence 

 of more valuable domestic animals; no herders are required to prevent its being lost 

 in the wastes of the ocean, and no expense is incurred either to protect it from the 

 inclemency of the weather or to provide a winter food supply; yet with more certainty 

 than the ranchman's flocks and herds seek the home range do the seals annually 

 return to their breeding-grounds where, under proper management, they can without 

 injury to the parent stock be made to yield a profit equal to if not greater than that 

 derived from the cattle of the plains or the sheep of the mountains. 



The southern fur seal and its destruction. — Despite these characteristics, which must 

 have been apparent to the most ignorant and unobservant, what has been the course of 

 events! Turning first to tbe fur seal of the south we find that as early as C90 some 



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