248 ORAL ARGUMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. PHELPS. 



Dr. Blierino- of Berlin, Professor of Zoology in the Royal Agricultural 

 College, writes a letter wliicli will be found at the bottom of page 420; 

 and reading only an extract here, he says: 



I am, like yourself, of the opinion that the remarkable decrease of fnr-aeals on the 

 rookeries of the Pribilof Islands, wliich has of late years become more and more 

 evident, is to be attributed mainly or p(!rhaps exclusively to the unreasonable 

 destruction caused by the sealers who ply their avocation in the open sea. 'J'he only 

 rational method of takin<j the fur-seal and tlie only one tliat is not likely to result 

 in the extermination of this valuable animal is the one which has hitherto been 

 employed on the Pribilof Islands under the su])ervision of the Government. Any 

 other method of takinjj; the northern fur-seal slionld, in my opinion, be prohibited by 

 international asjreement. I should, at furthest, ajyprove a local pursuit of the fur- 

 seal where it as destructive of the fisheries in its southern winter quarters. I regard 

 pelagic fur-s(!a]ing as very unwise; it must soon lead to a decrease, bordering on 

 extermination of the fur-seal. 



Professor Collett, of the University of Christiania, in Norway, says: 



It would be a very easy reply to your highly interesting treatise of the fur-seal, 

 ■which you have been kind enough to send us, when I only answered you that I agree 

 with you entirely in all points. No doubt it would be the greatest value for the 

 rookeries on the Pribilof Islands, as well as for the preservation of the existence of 

 the seal, if it would be possible to stop the sealing at sea at all. Put that will no 

 doubt be very difficult, when so many nations partake in the sealing and how that 

 is to go about I cannot know. My own countrymen are killing every year many 

 thousands of seals and cystoplwrw on the ice Itarrier between Spitzbergen and Green- 

 land, but never females with young; either the old ones caught, or, and that is the 

 greatest number, the young seals. Put there is a close time, accepted by the difter- 

 ent nations, just to prohibit the killing of the females with young. Perhaps a 

 similar close-time could be accepted in the Behring Sea. 



Dr. Hartlaub writes a letter, and you will notice that the original as 

 well as the translation, from which I read, is printed. He says: 



I am far from attributing to myself a competent judgment regarding this matter, 

 but considering all facts which you have so clearly and convincingly combined and 

 expressed, it seems to me that the measures you propose in order to prohibit the 

 threatening decay of the northern fur-seal are the only correct ones promising an effect- 

 ive result. 



Professor Salvadori, from Turin, gives a letter. 



Dr. I/eopold von iSchreuck, of the Imperial Academy of Science, St. 

 Petersburg, gives another letter. 



Then I take Dr. Giglioli, the Director of the Zoological Museum, 

 Eoyal Superior Institute in Florence. That is a long and full letter. 

 I wish I could read it all, but I will read from the bottom of page 424. 



Having conclusively shown that the lamented decrease in the herd of fnr-seals 

 resorting to the Pribilof Islands can in no way be accounted for by the selective 

 killing of non-breeding males for commercial purposes, which takes place on those 

 islands under special rules and active surveillance, we must look elsewhere for its 

 cause; and I can see it nowhere but in the indiscriminate slaughter, princijially prac- 

 tised on breeding or pregnant females, as most clearly shown in your condensed 

 Report, by pelagic sealers. 



In any case, all who are competent in the matter will admit that no method of 

 capture could be more uselessly destructive in the case of Pinnipedia than that called 

 "pelagic sealing," not only any kind of selection of the victims is impossible, but it 

 is admitting much to assert that out of three destroyed one is secured and utilized, 

 and this for obvious and well-known reasons. In the case of the North Pacific Fur 

 Seal, this mode of capture and destruction is doubly to be condemned, because the 

 destruction falls nearly exclusively on those, the nursing or pregnant females, which 

 ought on no account to be killed. It is greatly to be deplored that any civilized 

 nation possessing fishery laws and regulations should allow such indiscriminate 

 waste and destruction. The statistical data you give are pain fully eloquent, and when 

 we come to the conclusion that the fi2,500 skins secured by pelagic sealing in 1891 

 represent at a minimum one-sixth of the Fur seals destroyed, namely 375,000, — that 

 is, calculating one in three secured and each of the throe suckling a pup or big with 

 young, — we most undoubtedly need not look elsewhere to account for the rapid 



