84 American Fisheries Society 



which, by virtue of its citizens having been engaged in pelagic 

 sealing many years ago, acquired an interest in and claim on 

 the Alaska fur-seal herd. 



The original size of the Alaskan seal herd cannot be stated 

 with any degree of definiteness because of the difficulty in 

 deciding from the early accounts whether there were two and 

 one-half million or four milHon adults in the herd. But 

 there is reason to believe that there may have been not less 

 than two and a half million seals in the herd at the time the 

 United States acquired Alaska from Russia, and in former 

 times the number may have been considerably greater. 



The decline of the Alaskan seal herd was a very pitiable 

 event in the history of our fisheries. It was due, as we now 

 believe, wholly to pelagic sealing — the indiscriminate slaugh- 

 ter of animals at sea by vessels under the United States, 

 British and Japanese flags. As we look back on pelagic seal- 

 ing, I think we are in accord in holding that it was a wholly 

 indefensible practice. There was a most terrible waste of 

 valuable life, because of the indiscriminate manner in which 

 the killing had been done. The animals were shot at sea, 

 and for every one recovered three or five or more were 

 wounded or killed and not recovered. Then, too, there was 

 a great waste due to the starvation of the pups on shore and 

 the sacrifice of the unborn pups. So that in 1911 the Alaskan 

 seal herd had dwindled from two and a half million animals 

 to approximately 125,000. 



This brings me to the Fur Seal Convention of 1911, 

 which resulted in restoring or putting on the way to restora- 

 tion this valuable herd of wild animals. This convention, 

 participated in by the governments of the United States, 

 Canada, Japan and Russia, decided that so far as those coun- 

 tries were concerned pelagic sealing should stop, and three 

 of these countries at that time became pecuniarily interested 

 in the Alaskan seal herd and have since been reaping rather 



