INTERNATIONAL REGULATIONS OF FISHERIES ON THE HIGH SEAS. 149 
realized, the entire annual product of sea otters throughout the world now 
approximating only 200 and of the arctic whales less than 100 each year. The 
timid whalebone whales have been swept from the navigable seas and are nowhere 
to be found except in the most remote ice fields of the frigid zones, the recent 
decrease having been in geometric ratio owing to modern inventions—to steam 
vessels, electric lights, and especially to the shot harpoon. The walrus are 
almost exterminated in the seas north of Europe, and in Bering Sea, where they 
were formerly so plentiful, they are to be found only in one small herd, which 
hauls out in the spring and falls on the islets off Port Heiden, on the Alaska 
peninsula. 
It is shocking to contemplate the indifference with which the civilized world 
has witnessed, nay, not only witnessed but encouraged, the slaughter, almost to 
the point of extinction, of highly organized animals evidencing traits of affection 
and devotion which would do honor to human beings. Everywhere, in every sea, 
it is the same story, slaughter, slaughter, slaughter. What more pathetic sight 
in the whole range of man’s ruthless destruction than the thousands of nursing 
fur seals starving and dead at the present moment on the shores of the Pacific 
islands as a result of the inhuman butchery of their nurture-seeking mothers in 
the waters of Bering Sea and the North Pacific. At the present rate of decrease 
the day is not far distant when these will have become as extinct as the buffalo 
of the American prairies. 
Let it not be understood that our sympathy for the highly organized crea- 
tures of the sea would withhold them from industrial use. The slaughter of 
animals under proper conditions, whether they be in the seas or under domestic 
care, does not in itself constitute needless cruelty, for the end of every individual, 
beast or human, is pathetic, whether it be brought about by sudden accident or 
through the waste of years. When this slaughter is so conducted that it is con- 
servative utilization, with due care for the welfare and perpetuation of the species 
as a whole, it is but the most intelligent application of nature’s wisest law of the 
survival of the fittest. The preservation which we would extend to these animals 
is largely for the purpose of their greater slaughter. We would surround them 
with such protection and take them only under such conditions as would tend 
to increase their numbers and thus make them of far greater value to the hardy 
fishermen whose industry has won renown in all ages. 
It is hoped that the wide public interest attracted to the preservation of 
our natural resources will result in preventing the now imminent extermination 
of these species, whose zoologic and philosophic worth far exceeds their economic 
‘value; and it seems that this Fishery Congress faces no more important duty 
than that of adding the weight of its great influence in staying the inhuman 
hand of destruction and extermination. Already this subject is attracting atten- 
tion in America, and during the last twelve months resolutions favoring action 
for the preservation of these animals were adopted by a number of scientific 
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