32 REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 



average, presumably because these years were the last of 

 the Alaska Commercial Compauy's lease of these islands. 

 Reasonable proof is thus again afforded that the sum total 

 of seal life on the breeding islands is affected most directly 

 by excessive killing on shore. 

 Facts at soa 93. jn nearly all that has heretofore been written on the 



laementary.'^''™ fur-seal of the North Pacific, attention has been too nar- 

 rowly conlined to such observations as could be made upon 

 the breeding islands, and the fact that the greater part of 

 the life of the seals is spent, not upon these islands, but at 

 large on the ocean, has been to a great extent lost sight of. 

 This naturally happened from the circumstance that those 

 in any way interested in the seals, till the beginning of 

 pelagic sealing, remained upon the breeding islands, and 

 knew merely what coukl be ascertained there. The data 

 now obtained at sea, for the first time enables the migra- 

 tion routes and the winter as well as the summer habitat 

 of the fur seal to be clearly uiulerstood, and it becomes 

 evident that, in considering the condition of seal life as a 

 whole, we must include, not only the observations made 

 on the islands, but also the complementary, and, in part, 

 countervailing, facts noted at sea. 

 General con- 16 94. A rcvicw iu detail of all the available facts, 



most of which have been alluded to or outlined in 

 the foregoing part of this summary, leads us to believe 

 that there has been, in the main, a gradual reduction in 

 the total volume of seal life in the North Pacific, dating 

 back to a period approximately coincident with the excess- 

 ive and irregular killing on the Pribyloff' Islands in 1807 to 

 1869, but that this reduction in total volume has not in late 

 years been nearly so rapid as the observed decrease in num- 

 bers upon the Pribyloff" breeding islands in the correspond- 

 ing years. Such a review suggests that if suitable and 

 moderate regulations be now adopted and carried out, the 

 decrease may be arrested, and no danger of the proximate 

 depletion of the fur-seal or destruction of the fur-seal fishery 

 need be anticipated. 

 Possible result. 95. If, howevcr, the inflexible and heavy draft on seal 

 life in the past should be maintained on the breeding 

 islands, while pelagic sealing also continues to increase at 

 the present ratio, it is practically certain that the whole 

 number of seals must, in the course of a few years, become 

 further reduced to such a degree as to cause the industries 

 based upon their capture to lose all importance from a 

 commercial point of view. The continued undue disturb- 

 ance of the seals must likewise tend to cause them to 

 abandon their present haunts. 

 Industrial con 96. Ajjart, therefore, from such merely ethical consider- 



bi tratious. ations as have from time to time been advanced in favour 

 of the preservation of the fur-seal, but Avhich appear to 

 have no special bearing upon this more than on any other 

 animal in a state of nature, the intrinsic value of the fur 

 of the seals together with the material interests involved 

 in the taking and the dressing of the skins, seem to call for 

 such regulations as may result in the maintenance of the 

 fisherv. 



