96 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 
seas.? Perhaps the most prominent instance of the kind in which international 
regulations were directed to the protection from threatened extermination of a 
marine animal is that of the treaty dealing with the seal fisheries of Bering Sea. 
SEAL FISHERIES. 
It may be objected that, although the pursuit of the seal is popularly classed 
under the head of ‘fisheries,’ the seal itself is not a ‘‘fish” and does not there- 
fore properly come within the purview of this essay. But a reference to the 
case is at least admissible on the ground that it serves to bring into prominence 
the fact already alluded to that international agreements for the protection of 
fish from overfishing are conspicuously rare in the case of the high seas. 
The difficulty of proving the existence and effect of overfishing in the case 
of fisheries on the high seas is generally recognized; the movements of the fish 
are not easily traced, the causes of those movements are often unknown, and 
the direct effect of man’s operations, either in influencing those movements or 
in reducing the available supply of fish, is generally a matter of inference from 
insufficient data and incapable of proof. But in the case of the seal we are 
dealing with an animal whose movements at the most critical periods of its 
career are open to view and easily observed; whose numbers are capable of 
ascertainment by means of a census sufficiently accurate for all practical pur- 
poses; and on whose destruction a definite limit could be set without serious 
difficulty. It was therefore comparatively easy in this case to bring home to 
all the powers interested the necessity for measures of protection and then to 
induce them to agree on the most obvious restrictions. Whether those restric- 
tions will prove in all respects sufficient for their purpose is a question which 
only further experience can finally answer, but their promise of success is suffi- 
cient to encourage the hope that the end in view will be achieved, and further- 
more that the increase of knowledge as to the habits of fish and as to man’s 
influence upon them will be made the basis of any analogous steps that may be 
proposed for international action toward the prevention of overfishing in the 
case of fish properly so-called. 
It may be interesting to note, in this connection, that thirty years ago, by 
agreement between the United Kingdom and the Scandinavian powers inter- 
ested in the seal fisheries of Greenland, the killing of seals on and near the coasts 
of that country was prohibited in any season until a date at which it was esti- 
mated that the young cubs would be able to provide for themselves, and it is 
believed that the supply of seals in the waters in question has considerably 
increased in consequence. 
@ The omission from this essay of any reference to the international regulations relating to the 
fisheries carried on in common by the fishermen of the United States, Canada, and Newfoundland is 
justified on the ground that some of the questions involved are the subject of pending diplomatic 
negotiations between the powers concerned. 
