192 THE FUR SEALS OF THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 



THE WILD-ANIMAL POLICY. 



This policy, which systematically treated the fur seals as wild animals, bore iruit 

 later oii, when the theory of exclusiv^e ownership in the seals became vital to the 

 interests of the Government. This theory, being wholly incompatible with its 

 management of the herd, was legally untenable. It is safe to say that had the 

 United States looked after its herd with the care and attention that a cattleman on 

 the plains would bestow on his stock, the theory that ownershij) in the fur-seal herd 

 must be shared with the pelagic sealer would not have been established. Had the 

 United States in 1886, instead of seizing sealing vessels under a shadowy right of 

 jurisdiction over the waters of Bering Sea, branded a mark of ownership upon each 

 female, cleansed the rookeries from worm-breeding vsands, and then seized the vessels 

 that destroyed its property, it is probable that to-day there would be no fur-seal 

 question. 



LACK OF FAITH IN OUR OWN METHODS. 



But so little attention had the Government paid to the condition of its herd and 

 the results of its own methods of handling the animals, that it was possible in 1891, 

 for those interested in maintaining pelagic sealing, to set up the counterclaim that 

 our own methods were responsible for the depleted condition of the herd, and the 

 Government found itself unable to successfully combat the charge. Indeed, it would 

 seem that it was not itself assured of its own innocence, otherwise the useless 

 repression of di-iving in 1894 and 1895, after the modus vivendi, is without explanation. 

 In these years, after three years of rest, the full product of the hauling grounds should 

 have been taken. Instead of this we find that the taking of seals was limited to two 

 drives from each hauling ground in the season, this change being made with the 

 avowed purpose of avoiding injury and disturbance to the rookeries. 



WASTEFUL MANAGEMENT. 



We must again, at the risk of repetition, call attention to the tiuancial loss which 

 the management of the fur-seal herd in the first twenty years of our control involved. 

 From the published records of the islands we find that no less than 154,000 animals, 

 either too young to furnish skins or whose condition was such that the skins were 

 not available, were killed and their pelts wasted. Had these animals been killed in 

 the proper season or been allowed to grow to the proper age, the revenue in tax alone 

 from these skins would have been $4(>0,(»00. 



Why this waste was permitted we can not understand unless it be that the 

 matter was never properly urged upon the attention of the Government. It seems 

 certain to us that had the agents in charge of the islands ascertained the uselessness 

 and wastefulness of this i^roceeding it would never have been allowed to continue. 

 This money would have paid five times over for competent and systematic 

 investigation of the herd from the day it came into control of the United States to 

 the present time. It would in all likelihood have averted its depletion and all the 

 expensive litigation and friction which the fnrseal question has involved. 



THE TWO VITAL MATTERS YET UNKNOW^N. 



There are two important matters which the Government ought to understand in 

 order to handle its fur-seal interests intelligently, and these two vital facts it has not 



