514 ALASKAN HERD. 



loose a pack of wolves to raid them between their pasture grounds and 

 their corrals. A fur-seal is an animal of high and fine organism, with 

 wonderful delicacy and sensitiveness, and however much attached to 

 their natural laud habitat they may be, are easily driven therefrom by 

 violent methods, whether upon land or in the water. The whole se- 

 cret, in my judgment, of the preservation of the seal lite at thePribilof 

 Islands ami in the Bering Sea lies in a prompt return to those early 

 methods of preservation which produced such marvelous results for 

 good during the earlier years of our possession of the islands. The 

 suppression of unlawful and miscellaneous seal killing, whether in the 

 open sea or along our northern coasts, is the essential thing, in my 

 judgment, to resuscitate this great industry and prevent the utter ex- 

 termination of the seal life. 



To one like myself, having a practical knowledge of the subject, de- 

 rived from close personal observation and study on the ground, it is 

 amazing that there should have been so much delay on the part of the 

 countries most concerned in arriving at a full agreement for the ade- 

 quate protection of this unique and valuable industry. Indiscriminate 

 poaching has only resulted in injury to the common interest, benefiting 

 only a few lawless poachers who have been suffered to invade what 

 should be treated as sacred marine territory. 



I desire to add that I have not now, and never have had, any pecun- 

 iary or property interest whatever, directly or indirectly, in the sealing 

 industry, and that I look upon the question simply as an American 

 citizen desirous of seeing that which belongs to our Government and 

 people defended and protected to the uttermost. 



To one who has spent so many years among the seals as I have and 

 who has taken so much interest in them, it does 

 J. c. Bedpath, p. 152. appear to be wrong that they should be allowed 

 to be so ruthlessly and indiscriminately slaugh- 

 tered by pelagic hunters, who secure only about one-fourth of all 

 they kill. There is no doubt in my mind that unless immediate pro- 

 tection be given to the Alaskan fur-seal the species will be practically 

 destroyed in a very few years; and in order to protect them pelagic 

 hunting must be absolutely prohibited. 



I think the seals ought to be protected both in Bering Sea and the 

 North Pacific Ocean, and pelagic sealing entirely 

 T. F. Ryan, p. 175. prohibited in those waters, or else a close season 

 established, beginning March 1 and ending Sep- 

 tember 1 or October I. In case the seals are not protected in this 

 manner, I believe they will be exterminated within five years. 



The annihilation of many rookeries formerly existing in different parts 

 of the world has heretofore been accomplished by 



C. M. Scammon p. 475 wasteful, and sometimes wanton, destruction on 

 the land. Now, the only known rookeries of any 

 size are guarded, and the vandals can not reach them; but they seem 

 to have found methods of destruction almost as effectual as a seal club, 

 and they kill as cruelly and wastefully as they formerly did on land. 

 Other animals of less use to mankind than the seals are protected by a 

 close season, or some other restriction, to save them from slaughter 

 when breeding, but nearly all the seals killed in the water are mothers 

 with young. 



