187 



But does the riglit of tbe United States to protect tliis race of animals 

 from extermination b}' pelagic hunters depend upon its o\Miership of 

 the herd, while the seals are beyond jurisdictional limits in the high 

 seas'? Does that country have such special iiccuniary interest in the 

 l)reservation of the race that it may, consistently with the law of 

 nations and independently of any right of i)roperty in the herd itself, 

 interpose, if need be by force, to prevent their wanton destruction while 

 absent from the Pribilof Islands? 1 say wanton destruction, because 

 110 one can for a moment doubt that pelagic sealing, if it continues to 

 the extent practiced within the past live years, will soon exterminate 

 this race. 



The principal facts upon which the United States rests the contention 

 that, independently of property in this herd of seals, it may use such 

 means as are necessary to prev^ent the destruction of the race by pelagic 

 sealers, are summarized in the following extracts from the printed argu- 

 ment of the counsel of the United States: 



''Here is a herd of amphibious animals, half human in their intelli- 

 gence, valuable to mankind, almost the last of their species, which from 

 time immemorial have established their home with a constant animus 

 revertendi on islands once so remote from the footsteps of man that 

 these, their only denizens, might reasoiuibly liave been expected to be 

 permitted to exist and to continue the usefulness for which the benefi- 

 cence of the Creator designed them. Upon these islands their young- 

 are begotten, brought forth, nurtured during the early months of their 

 lives, the land being absolutely necessary to these x>rocesses and no 

 other land having ever been sought by them, if any other is, in fact, 

 available, Avhich is gravely to be doubted. 



"The Russian and United States Governments, successively proprie- 

 tors of the islands, have by wise and careful supervision cherished aiul 

 ])rotected this herd, and have built up from its product a permanent 

 business and industry valuable to themselves and to the world, and a 

 large source of public revenue, and which at the same time preserves 

 the animals from extinction or from any interference inconsistent with 

 the dictates of humanity. 



"It is now proposed by individual citizens of another country to lie 

 in wait for these animals on the adjacent sea during the season of repro- 

 duction, and to destroy the pregnant females on their way to the islands, 

 the nursing mothers after delivery while tem})()rarily off the islands in 

 pursuit of food, and thereby the young left there to starve after the 



