RECENT LEGISLATION AFFECTING THE FUR 



SEAL 



By C. H. Townsend 



The Sixty-second Congress, in passing the bill to give 

 effect to the treaty between the United States, Great Britain, 

 Russia and Japan, for the suppression of pelagic sealing, 

 attached an amendment providing for a closed season of 

 five years on male seals on the Pribilof Islands. 



This endangers the treaty, as it cuts off for five years the 

 percentage of profits to which the other countries are en- 

 titled by the provisions of the treaty. It will result in too 

 many fighting males and a consequent loss of pup seals by 

 trampling. It will also mean a loss of over two and a half 

 millions of dollars to the Treasury in five years, as the 

 skins of old males are of no value. It will destroy the most 

 valuable herd of blue foxes in the world, the large size of 

 the fox herd being dependent upon the abundant food supply 

 of the seal killing grounds. The fox fur resources are worth 

 almost as much as is the seal at the present time. 



The amendment was against the recommendations of the 

 Bureau of Fisheries, and also against the advice of all the 

 American and British naturalists who have studied the fur 

 seals on the Pribilof Islands. 



The outside sealing interests have always been repre- 

 sented at Washington by an active lobby. This lobby has 

 been discredited and defeated several times in the past, and 

 could not have won in the present case without the very 

 active help of certain respectable persons, who no doubt 

 mean well, but not one of whom had ever been on the Pribi- 

 lofs or understood the peculiar nature of the fur seal. These 

 gentlemen failed to perceive that they were being used to 

 further the future exploitation of the seals by private inter- 

 ests. It created considerable political disturbance, chiefly 

 by assailing the reputations of men connected with the fur 

 seal service. A future move of the seal lobby, when the 



