232 Fortieth Annual Meeting 



of interesting possibilities. May it not be possible to save 

 the hundreds or thousands of pups whose mothers are 

 killed by the pelagic sea pirates every year? To do this it 

 would be necessary to feed the pups only until the herd 

 leaves the islands late in the fall. After they have once 

 been taught to take solid food it would seem that they 

 might be permitted to leave the islands with the rest of the 

 pups and that their chances of survival in the sea would be 

 quite as good as any. 



The supplying of fur-seals to public aquariums and zoo- 

 logical parks is another possibility which seems entirely 

 practicable. The possibility of establishing a colony of fur- 

 seals in some fresh water lake is also suggested. The 

 essential features would seem to be a lake with an ade- 

 quate supply of fish, which does not freeze over entirely 

 in winter and in which the seals would be fully protected. 



But most interesting and important of all is the pos- 

 sibility of establishing colonies of fur-seals on our North 

 Atlantic Coast. If the Canadian government could estab- 

 lish a fur-seal colony or rookery somewhere on her east 

 coast, the pelagic sealing question would speedily be solved ; 

 for it would seem that Great Britain would at once join 

 the United States and the other maritime nations in an 

 international game law or agreement by which the High 

 Seas beyond the three-mile zone would become a place of 

 refuge for all marine mammals such as fur-seals, sea lions, 

 walruses and whales. This would not only stop pelagic 

 sealing but it would be the most effective step ever taken 

 for the preservation of these rapidly disappearing animals. 

 It is true that the difficulties in the way of establishing the 

 fur-seal in the Atlantic are very great, but I do not think 

 they cannot be met. 



