170 REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIOIs^ERS. 



steam power mijiht be prevented, as well as that of rifles in shooting 

 tlie seals. jSTets have scarcely been used along- the eastern part of the 

 North Pacitic in tlie fur-seal fishery, and it is improbable that they can 

 be advantiigeously employed anywhere beyond the three-mile limit. 

 The only known case in which nets have actually as yet been employed 

 occurred in 1S88, when it is on record that the Alaska Commercial Com- 

 pany fitted out two schooners, privately owned, to net seals in the 

 passes leading from Behring Sea through the Aleutian Islands, One 

 of these schooners is stated to have obtained 700 grey pn])s which were 

 sold to the Company at the rate of 2 dol. 50 c. per skin.* Netting, how- 

 ever, forms no part of legitimate pelagic sealing, and might well be 

 altogether prohibited. 



657. The use of the shot-gun for the purpose of killing seals at sea 

 has now become so nearly universal, that it is doubtful whether it can 

 be changed without an undue interference with the now established 

 industry. The loss of seals thus shot is, as already shown, small, and 

 there is therefore no cogent reason why this practice should be discon- 

 tinued. All the evidence shows that the loss when seals are speared 

 by the Indian hunters is i^ractically nil, but to restrict killing to spear- 

 ing would necessarily be to preclude all but skilled Indians from engag- 

 ing in it. 



658. Any such regulations applied to the use of specially destructive 

 engines, would have the eifect, under the assumed conditions, of increas- 

 ing the aggregate number of seals which would exist when what has 

 been referred to the level of stability is reached. 



IV. — Control and Methods of Sealing on the Pribyloff 

 Islands, their Nature and Results. 



(A.) — Methods employed. 



659. The system adopted for the regulation and working of the Priby- 

 loff Islands by the United States Government, when its control had 

 been established, and after the irregular and excessive killing which at 

 first followed on the withdrawal of the Russian authorities, was sub- 

 stantially that which had gradually been introduced by the Russians, 

 as the result of their prolonged experience, but with one very important 

 exception. This exception related to the number of seals allowed to be 

 killed annually. The number was at this time suddenly and very 

 largely increased, being in fact more than doubled, as is elsewhere 

 pointed out in detail; and while the experience of many former years 

 showed that the Russian system, with a limited annual killing, might 

 be maintained with a reasonable certainty of the continued well-being 

 of the breeding grounds, it had in fact, according to the best available 

 information, resulted in a gradual and nearly steady increase in number 

 of seals. The much larger number permitted to be killed under the 

 new regulations at once removed the new control into the region of 

 experiment. 



660. Theoretically, and apart from this question of number and other 

 matters incidental to the actual working of the methods employed, 

 these were exceedingly proper and well conceived to insure a large 

 continual annual output of skins from the breeding islands, always 



* Parliamentary Paper [C. — 6131], London, August 1890, p. 356. 



