ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 209 



number of seals killed on shoie might easily be made absolute, and, as the area of 

 the breeding islands is small, it should not be difficult to comiiletely safeguard these 

 from raiding by outsiders and from other illegal acts. 



And Section 327, on page 58: 



327. Thus, on the Pribyloff Islands, one particular instance has been recorded, 

 when, in consequence of the long persistence of field-ice about the ishinds, the seals 

 were very greatly depleted. This occurred in 1836, when, according to native count, 

 the number of adult seals on St. Paul Island was reduced to about 4,000, and the 

 greater part of the small number of seals killed in that year consisted of pups. 

 Other thought less disastrous instances, of the same kind have occurred since, and 

 a study of available information respecting the amount and position of the ice in 

 Behring Sea in vaiious years shows that such adverse conditions may recur in any 

 year, though probably seldom with the same intensity as in 1836. 



That serves to show from liow low a point the numbers of tlie seal herd 

 on the island, under the practice of limiting the draft to young males, 

 increased to their subsequent magnitude. 



I now read section 059, page 114: 



659. The system adopted for the regulation and working of the Pribiloff Islands 

 by the United States Government, when its control had been established, and after 

 the irregular and excessive killiug which at first followed on the withdrawal of the 

 Russian authorities, was substantially that which had gradually been introduced by 

 the Russians, as the result of their prolonged experience, but with one very impor- 

 tant exception. This exception related to the number of seals allowed to be killed 

 annually. The number was at this time suddenly and very largely increased, being 

 in fact more th;in doubled, as is elsewhere pointed out in detail; and while the 

 experience of many former years showed that the Russian system, with a limited 

 annual killing, might be maintained with a reasonable certainty of the continued 

 well-being of the breeding grounds, it had in fact, according to the best available 

 information, resulted in a gradual and nearly steady increase in the number of seals. 

 The much larger number permitted to be killed under the new regulations' at once 

 removed the new control into the region of experiment. 



That shows that the former control, the Russian control, at least, 

 resulted in a steady, and gradual increase in the number of seals. 

 I continue to read, 



660. Theoretically, and apart from this question of number and other matters inci- 

 dental to the actual working of the methods employed, these were exceedingly 

 proper and well conceived to insure a large continual annual output of skins from 

 the breeding islands, always under the supposition that the lessees of these islands 

 could have no competitors in the North Pacific. It was assumed that equal or prox- 

 imately equal numbers of males and females were born, that these were subject to 

 e(|ual losses by death or accident, and that, in consequence of the polygamous habits 

 of the fur-seals, a large number of males of any given merchantable age might be 

 slaughtered each year without seriously, or at all, interfering with the advantageous 

 proportion of males remaining for breeding purposes. 



661. The existence of the breeding rookeries as distinct from the hauling-grounds 

 of the young males, or holluschickie, was supposed to admit, and did in former 

 years to a great extent admit, of these young males being killed without disturbing 

 the breeding animals. The youug seals thus "hauling" apart from the actual breed- 

 ing grounds were surrounded by natives and driven oft" to some convenient place, 

 where males of suitable size were clubbed to death, and from which the rejected 

 animals were allowed to return to the sea. The carcasses were skinned on the kill- 

 ing ground, the skins salted, and at a later date bundled in pairs and shipped, with 

 such duplication or checking of count as might be supposed to aftbrd guarantees to 

 the agents of the Government and to the lessees that the interest of both were fairly 

 treated. 



6t)2. There can be no doubt that if the number permitted to be killed had been 

 fixed at an amount so low as to allow for exceptional and unavoidable natural causes 

 of interference with seal life, and if it had been rearranged each year in conformity 

 with the ascertained conditions, killing might have^een continued without general 

 damage to the seal life of the Pribilof Islands, and" very probably even witli a con- 

 tinued gradual increase in numbers of seals resorting to the islands up to some 

 unknown maximum point. Such results might haAe followed, notwithstanding the 

 practical imiierfection which clearly attached in execution to these theoretically 

 ajiprojiriate methods, and in spite of the important change from natural conditions 

 which any disturbance in proportion of sexes involved, if the demands made in the 

 B S, PT XII 14 



