324 SEAL LIFE ON THK I'KIBILOF ISLANDS. 



Jfche record books certain well established tacts concerning- pelagic seal- 

 ing. It will be necessary to dispose of the tact that while in 1878 there 

 was but I vessel engaged in pelagic, sealing, the number steadily 

 increased until in 181)2 there were ll'2 to follow on the migration tracks 

 of the herds, to harry them eight months out of the twelve, and, if 

 permitted, to accompany them to and even upon their chosen resorts. 

 There must also be a successful refutation of the fact that there is a 

 loss of at least 10 per cent inherent in the methods of taking seals at 

 sea; that pelagic sealing strikes at the very life of the rookeries, by 

 killing 7t> or 80 per cent of the females, more than half of which are 

 mothers whose death involves that of their unborn offspring; and that 

 the period of gestation being nearly twelve months, a mother killed in 

 Bering Sea means that three seal lives may pay the penalty. 



It is equally important to the maintenance of this theory that there 

 be an elimination of the fact that during the four seasons, ending with 

 the past one of 1803, there were taken on the Pribilof Islands only a 

 total of 50.000 skins of young males, while during that same period 

 there were actually marketed by the sealers over 200,000 skins, which 

 represented only about, half the injury done the seal herds, an injury 

 falling heaviest upon the producing class, the females. For four years 

 there has been practically a closed time on these islands, and pelagic 

 sealing has had full swing in the .North Tacific. The rookeries have- 

 not improved under these conditions, and until the records of the real 

 cause of destruction stand impeached it is idle to offer obscure and 

 improbable explanations for the present condition of seal life. 



It has only been profitable to follow this question of the cause of the 

 decadence to indicate what might be expected from pelagic sealing. 

 Whenever and to whatever extent carried on, its deadly effects are cer- 

 tain and continuous, the amount of injury being limited only by the 

 magnitude of the enterprise. Improprieties on land can be guarded 

 against, but the disastrous consequences of pelagic sealing are inherent 

 to the business and are beyond man's control. They can be lessened, 

 tmt only through the curtailment of the number of seals taken. The 

 injurious effect upon the herd, while proportionately less, remains a con- 

 stant factor. 



In following the career of an animal possessing such capacity for 

 self-perpetuation and ready adaptability to the uses of man, the student 

 of natural history or of economics is struck by the wanton and needless 

 destruction which pursues it wherever found. As to its future he turns, 

 for what comfort he may be able to extract, to the decision of that court 

 of recent if not last resort the Paris Tribunal of Arbitration. 



THE PARIS TRIBUNAL OF ARBITRATION. 



The causes which led to the arbitration are known to all. For some 

 years the Alaskan fur seal, when on its migration route, had been 

 the eagerly sought quarry of the pelagic hunters. This route, which 

 by reason ot its vast extent and proximity to inhabited shores makes 

 this herd especially vulnerable to attack, extends from the Pribilof 

 Islands southward through the passes of the Aleutian chain, expands 

 in the broad Pacific, but ultimately brings the seals in more compact 

 masses to the North American Coast, and thence along its shores, back 

 through the passes, to the Pribilof Islands again. Realizing the peril 

 of the rookeries, the Government of the United States attempted to 

 partially protect them by seizing sealing schooners in Bering Sea. 

 Each year it was thought that at least so far as these waters were con- 



