232 CABNIVORA PINNIPEDIA. 



by this government. England however successfully con- 

 tested the claim of the United States to jurisdiction in the 

 Bering Sea outside of the three-mile limit, but the In- 

 ternational Tribunal, which sat in Paris in 1893, and de- 

 cided against the claims of this government, as a compro- 

 mise measure established a close season from May 1st to 

 July 31st, in both the North Atlantic and North Pacific 

 Oceans; and excluded all killing in the waters within 

 sixty miles of the Pribilov Islands, These conditions, 

 however, failed to accomplish the desired result; and the 

 herd, which in 1874 numbered over 4,000,000, and in 1891, 

 1,000,000, had in 1909 been reduced to less than 200,000. 



A treaty was finally concluded on July 7, 1911, by 

 which the Governments of the United States, England, 

 Japan and Russia agreed to co-operate in abolishing 

 pelagic sealing for fifteen years. In this treaty it is 

 agreed; that the United States and Russia, as the owners 

 of the principal fur seal herds, shall each pay to Great 

 Britain and Japan, fifteen percent of their land sealing 

 operations. This treaty went into effect in 1912, and it is 

 estimated that as a result fifteen thousand breeding fur 

 seal females, who under the operation of pelagic sealing 

 would have failed to reach the islands, brought forth their 

 young at the rookeries. This fact alone demonstrates the 

 cause of the herd's decline as well as its ability to restore 

 itself if protected from further loss from this source. On 

 February 15, 1912, a bill, which has since become a law, 

 was introduced in the House of Representatives to give 

 effect to certain provisions of the treaty of 1911. An 

 effort was at once made to attach to this bill an amend- 

 ment providing for the suspension of all land sealing dur- 

 ing the period of the treaty. The amendment was defeated 

 as originally offered, but a compromise was finally effect- 

 ed fixing the period of the suspension of land sealing at 

 five years, and permitting only the killing of a limited 

 number of the animals as food for the natives on the 

 islands; and that is now the law. 



As the essential consideration in the treaty of 1911, is 

 the agreement of the United States and Russia, to give 

 to Great Britain and Japan each fifteen per cent, of the 

 land catch, to compensate the pelagic sealers ; this action 

 was an actual repudiation, by this government of the 





