116 NEW YORK, ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
sealing business, as a whole, has been losing money for several 
seasons. Renewed efforts were made by the United States Goy- 
ernment to put a stop to it. In the meantime American citizens, 
a small number of whom were engaged in pelagic sealing, have 
been prohibited from engaging in the pursuit of seals at sea, and 
Congress passed laws prohibiting the importation of seals taken 
by pelagic sealing, into the United States. So long as pelagic, 
or indiscriminate sealing in any form remains, the restoration of 
the fur-seal fisheries will be impossible. The Bering Sea con- 
troversy was precipitated by the seizure by the United States Gov- 
ernment of Canadian sealing vessels in Bering Sea. Later on, 
the matter was placed in the hands of the Tribunal of Arbitration 
at Paris. This tribunal, having decided that the United States 
had no jurisdiction over Bering Sea outside of territorial limits, 
pelagic sealing continued in but slightly modified form. The 
seal herds are now so decimated that the surplus males available 
for killing on the Pribilof Islands in 1904 numbered only 13,273, 
and on the Commander Islands, 8,315. 
Pelagic sealing at the present time is engaged in by vessels 
belonging to British Columbia, a few Japanese vessels partici- 
pating.* The sealing fleet has decreased from 122 vessels in 
1892 to 22 vessels in 1904. Its yearly catch has declined from 
61,838 seals in 1894 to 14,541 seals in 1904. Data in full respect- 
ing the number of seals taken in pelagic sealing from its incep- 
tion down to 1897, were published in the United States Report 
of Fur Seal Investigations for 1897-98. Official data, in part un- 
published, showing the number of fur seals taken by the Canadian 
fleet in American and Asiatic waters from 1898 to 1904 is pre- 
sented herewith through the courtesy of the Department of Com- 
merce and Labor: 
[OOS ae soree 28,099 MOQOh ba nortan 35,344 
TOOO sper ra re 35.523 LOOT: cat ie 22 
NQO2Ds penta eek 16,143 LOOB seaseae 14,701 
TOO 4a hs soeen: 14,541 
It is now proposed that the pelagic sealing industry of British 
Columbia be abolished upon the payment of $500,000 by the 
United States Government, and negotiations are pending. The 
subject has lately become complicated on account of pelagic seal- 
ing by Japanese vessels in Bering Sea, where they are restrained 
by territorial limits only, Japan not being a party to the temporary 
restrictions agreed to by Great Britain and the United States. 
* Data for Japanese vessels not available. 
