CHAPTER XII. 



THE EFFECT OF PELAGIC SEALING. 



PELAGIC SEALING INVOLVES THE KILLING OF FEMALES. o^ 



111 the foregoing discussion we have assumed for the time being that pelagic 

 sealing has been the cause of the decline in the fur-seal herd. The relation of the 

 laud catch to the sea catch is such as to lead inevitably to this conclusion. But there 

 remain other and better reasons for holding pelagic sealing responsible for the 

 decline. 



As has been already shown, only males are killed on land; the females are not 

 disturbed. On the other hand, at sea animals of every age and condition, and of 

 both sexes, are taken. In the water it is impossible to distinguish the sexes, and all 

 animals seen are killed if possible. On land the habits of the animals are such that 

 the males can be readily separated and handled without disturbance to the females. 



PELAGIC SEALING AND THE SEALING OF THE SOUTH SEAS. 



With the above contrast between land and sea killing in mind, we may pause for 

 a moment to consider the strange proposition put forward in the British contention 

 before the Paris Tribunal, that " the methods practiced on the Pribilof Islands and 

 those practiced in the southern hemisphere " were parallel in results. This was in 

 answer to the contention by the United States that pelagic sealing was essentially 

 the same as the sealing which destroyed herds of the Antarctic. On the contrary, 

 say the British commissioners in 1891, the history of the rookeries of the south seas 

 proves incontestably that "excessive slaughter on shore in the entire absence of 

 pelagic sealing results in commercial extermination." 1 



The absence of pelagic sealing in the southern hemisphere has nothing to do 

 with the matter. It would be absurd to expect pelagic sealing there when there was 

 nothing to prevent the sealers from landing and directly invading the rookeries. 

 It is safe to say that there would have been no pelagic sealing in the northern 

 hemisphere had it been possible for any who might choose to do so to land and kill 

 females on shore. 



METHODS OF SOUTHERN SEALING. 



In the case of the rookeries of the southern hemisphere, men armed with clubs 

 or firearms were landed on the rookeries, who killed all the animals they could 

 secure, making no distinctions as to sex, age, or condition. In a day or a week they 

 returned to complete the work of destruction if it was not complete at the first trial. 

 It must appear from a candid contrast of such slaughter that it has nothing in 

 common with land killing on the Pribilof Islands beyond, perhaps, the fact that 

 in both cases the killing is done on shore and with a club. 



1 Rep. of Brit. Coram., Fnr Seal Arl>., vol. 6, p. 217. 



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