106 SEAL LIFE ON THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 







The English commission was invited as suggested by Mr. Elliott; the 

 commissioners arrived at the seal islands in the latter part of July, 1891 ; 

 they visited the rookeries and saAv the " wreck and ruin thereon;" they 

 noted the "dwindling herds," and they saw new grass growing on acres 

 of ground where, a few years earlier, hundreds of thousands of seals 

 swarmed in season and brought forth their young. The commissioners 

 found acres of ground covered with dead pup seals as thick as they 

 could lie u emaciated little fellows" whose mothers had gone out to 

 the feeding banks, and were captured by the pelagic sealers. 



Whether the visit induced them to believe or respect Mr. Elliott 

 remains to be seen, but it certainly did not u arouse their interest or 

 sympathy" for the seals, or for the nation that claimed the right to pro- 

 tect them. Xor did it make them "our sworn friends in cooperating to 

 save the fur seal from impending extermination." 



On the contrary, though, they adopted Mr. Elliott's own exploded 

 theories of overdriving, impotency, dearth of bulls, lack of young male 

 blood, redriving, scraping the rookeries, stampeding, and added two or 

 three more of their own, almost as absurd and nonsensical; and they 

 wound up their sympathetic and impartial labor in behalf of protection 

 for fur seals by the following regulations suggested by the British 

 Bering 8ea commissioners: 



(H) SPECIFIC SCHEME OF REGULATIONS RKCOMMENDEH. 



155. In view of the actual condition of seal life as it presents itself to us at the 

 present time, we believe that the requisite degree of protection would be afforded by 

 the application of the following specific limitations at shore and at sea: 



(a) The maximum number of seals to be taken on the Fribilof Islands to be fixed 

 at 50,000. 



(&) A zone of protected waters to be established, extending to a distance of 20 

 nautical miles from the islands. 



(c) A close season to be provided, extending from the 15th of September to the 1st 

 of May in each year, during which all killing of seals shall be prohibited, with the 

 additional provision that no sealing vessel shall enter Bering Sea before the 1st of 

 July in each year. 



156. Respecting the compensatory feature of such specific regulations, it is believed 

 that a just scale of equivalency as between shore and sea sealing would be found, 

 and a complete check established against any undue diminution of seals, by adopting 

 the following as a unit of compensatory regulation: 



For each decrease of 10,000 in the number h'xed for killing on the islands, an 

 increase of 10 nautical miles to be given to the width of protected waters about the 

 islands. The minimum number to be fixed for killing on the islands to be 10,000, 

 corresponding to a maximum width of protected waters of 60 nautical miles. 



157. The above regulations represent measures at sea and ashore sufficiently equiv- 

 alent for all practical purposes, and probably embody or provide for regulations as 

 applied to sealing on the high seas as stringent as would be admitted by any mari- 

 time power, whether directly or only potentially interested. 



158. As an alternative method of effecting a compensatory adjustment of the strin- 

 gency of measures of protection, it is possible that some advantages might be found 

 in the adoption of a sliding scale of length for the season of sealing at sea, with a 

 fixed width of zone of protection about the Islands. 



In this case it is believed that, in correspondence with a decrease of 10,000 seals 

 killed upon the breeding islands, the length of the sealing season at sea might be 

 curtailed by seven days, such curtailment to be applied either to the opening or clos- 

 ing time of the sealing season. 



159. It may be objected to the principle involved in any correlative regulation of 

 shore and sea sealing that it would be impossible in any particular year to make 

 known the number fixed for killing on the islands in time to secure a corresponding 

 regulation of pelagic sealing. As a matter of fact, however, if the condition of the 

 breeding rookeries called for any change, it should be possible to fix this number 

 with sufficient precision a year in advance, while, on the other hand, the general 

 effect would be almost equally advantageous if the number killed on the islands in 

 any one year were employed as the factor of regulation for pelagic sealing in the fol- 

 lowing year. 



