THE FUR-SEALS AND THE BERING SEA AWARD 43 



the regulations about the Pribyloff Islands. A majority of 

 the animals thus taken were females, and at that particular 

 time every female has dependent upon her a young seal. The 

 death of the mother invariably results in the death of the 

 " pup " who awaits her return on shore. The unusually 

 high mortality of the young seals on the rookeries during 

 the season of 1894 gave silent testimony to the destructive 

 character of pelagic sealing in Bering Sea, for having de- 

 ducted from the total of dead " pups " found on the breeding- 

 ground whose deaths had resulted from overcrowding and 

 accident, an alarming proportion remained to indicate starva- 

 tion as the principal cause. The difficulty also of enforcing 

 the observance of a line of demarcation between protected 

 and unprotected waters, sixty miles at sea and entirely out of 

 sight of land, became apparent, and especially in this region 

 of dense and almost perpetual fog. 



The main objection to the regulations, however, was dis- 

 covered to be in the shortness of the closed season (May 1 

 to July 31), during which time no seals were to be captured 

 within the geographical limits already given. The fleet of 

 sealing vessels ordinarily begins its operations in January, 

 when the seals are at the southern extreme of their annual 

 migration, and follows the herd in a northerly direction along 

 the coast, during the early spring months. Stationing them- 

 selves in and about the passes of the Aleutian Islands, to 

 which points the seals converge on their long swim to the 

 Bering Sea, the hunters were enabled vastly to increase their 

 catch. At the beginning of the closed season, the sealing 

 captains crossed over to the Asiatic side of Bering sea and 

 preyed upon the unprotected herds of the Commander and 

 Robin islands, to return again about August 1 to the vicinity 

 of the Pribyloff rookeries, where they hovered about, causing 

 great destruction to the herd, until the approaching storms 

 of autumn warned all sailing craft to leave those open 

 waters. {The statistical results of the first season's operations 

 in Bering Sea and the North Pacific furnished ample grounds 

 for belief that the regulations had fallen far short of accom- 

 plishing the object for which they had been made^ Secretary 



