182 THE FUR SEALS OF THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 



To the pelagic sealer the close season offers 110 impediment and entails no loss. 

 He can rest assured that the seals he is prevented from taking in the North Pacific 

 will be more easily taken in Bering Sea in August, when the storms of the early 

 summer are over and the conditions in every way more favorable. In the meantime 

 he is given opportunity to refit his vessel, or he may cross over to the Asiatic side at 

 the beginning of the close season and prey upon the Commander herd before returning 

 to Bering Sea in August. 



On the whole, it is difficult to see how a more comfortable and convenient set of 

 regulations could have been prepared had the pelagic sealers themselves drawn them 

 up. It is difficult to see how they could be made more destructive to the herd if that 

 had been their deliberate intent. 



THE COST OF ENFORCING THE REGULATIONS. 



It is not enough, however, that these regulations legalize the destruction of the 

 herd. They are necessarily maintained at a tremendous cost. The Government of 

 the United States paid for the maintenance of its patrol in the North Pacific and in 

 Bering Sea during the period from April to October, 1896, the sum of $176,380.10. 

 The cost to Great Britain for her share in the patrol was smaller, but yet a 

 considerable sum. 



THE FAILURE OF THE REGULATIONS. 



It is scarcely necessary to state that the regulations of the Paris Award have 

 proved a signal failure. As has already been shown, the herd has continued to 

 decline steadily under them. The herd suffered its greatest loss under the first year 

 of their operation, when 61,000 animals were taken at sea. In the year 1896, of the 

 catch taken in Bering Sea, 84 per cent were females, practically all of them pregnant 

 and having nursing pups dependent upon them. Between the seasons of 1896 and 

 1897 the breeding herd suffered a diminution of from 12 to 15 per cent, notwithstand- 

 ing the fact that the pelagic catch had largely declined through the exhaustion of the 

 herd. To this it is only necessary to add that under the rigid patrol which has been 

 maintained the regulations have been strictly enforced and fully complied with. No 

 further condemnation of these measures for the "protection and preservation of the 

 seals" could be expected. 



THE REDEEMING FEATURE OF THE REGULATIONS. 



The one redeeming feature about the regulations is the final provision for their 

 reconsideration and revision. The only difficulty here is that the trial period fixed at 

 five years was too long. One season would have been sufficient to test them. They 

 were calculated to show their quality at once. As a matter of fact it was clearly 

 demonstrated by the recorded catch of the first season of their operation that they 

 had stimulated rather than retarded pelagic sealing and consequently had heightened 

 the decline of the herd. That a fleet of 87 vessels in the first year of the operation 

 of the regulations should have been able to take 61,000 seals, whereas 115 vessels, 

 in 1891, before pelagic sealing was interfered with, took but 59,000, was clear enough 

 evidence that the regulations had only altered matters for the worse. 



