REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 39 



have become in tlieir nature ineffective and inapproj)riate, 

 especially in view of the sea sealing, wliicli, at the time 

 these methods were adopted, was practically nnknown. 

 The added knowledge of the fnr-seal now gained renders 

 it further necessary to recognize it as an essentially pelagic 

 animal, which, at a certain season of each year, resorts to 

 the land. Thus, the older and cruder methods of regula- 

 tion have become unsound and in large measure useless, 

 and the new conditions which have arisen require to be 

 faced, if it is desired to obviate all <langer of commercial 

 exterminatiou. 



123. Besides the general right of all to hunt and take the ^^^^'^{^"^^ "s''*^ 

 fur-seal on the high seas, there are, however, some special 

 interests in such hunting, of a prescriptive kind, arising from 



use and immemorial custom, such as those of the "natives" 

 of the Piibyloff Islands, and of the inhabitants of the Aleu- 

 tian Islands, of South-eastern Alaska, of the coast of Brit- 

 ish Columbia, and of the State of Washington. There are 

 also rights dependent on local position, such as those of the 

 Governments j)ossessing the breeding islands and those 

 controlling the territorial waters in or adjacent to which 

 the seals spend the winter half of the year. Such rights 

 do not, however, depend on position only, but also on the 

 fact that the seals necessarily derive their sustenance from 

 the hsh which frequent these waters, which, if not thus 

 consumed by the seals, would be available for capture by 

 the people of the adjacent coasts. The rights of this kind 

 which flow from the possession of the breeding islands are 

 well known and generally acknowledged, but those of a 

 similar nature resulting from the situation of the winter 

 home of the seal along the coast of British Columbia have 

 not till lately been fully appreciated. 



124. Eeferring more particularly to the Pribylofif Islands, pr^^°|'og^*'°° °° 

 it must perhaps be assumed that no arrangement would be '^' ^ " 

 entertained which would throw the cost of the setting apart 



of these islands as breeding grounds on the United States 

 Government, together with that of the support of some 300 

 natives. 



It may be noted, however, that some such arrangement 

 would offer ])erhaps the best and simplest solution of the 

 present conflict of interests, for the citizens of the United 

 States would still jiossess equal rights with all others to 

 take seals at sea, and in consequence of the proximity of 

 their territory fo the sealing grounds, they would probably 

 become the principal benehciaries. 



125. Any such disinterested protection of breedingislands ^";ee(is no inter. 

 either by Eussia or the United States would possess the uon"!"* ^*^^" "' 

 extreme simplicity of being entirely nnder the control of 



a single Government, whereas in every other project it 

 becomes necessary to face the far more difficult problem of 

 international agreement to some code of regulations involv- 

 ing an accompanying curtailment of rights. In other 

 words, any such arrangement must be viewed either as a 

 concession of certain rights on the high seas, or a conces- 

 sion of peculiar rights devolving from territorial possession 

 of the breeding islands of the seal, made iu each case for 



