ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 283 



THE REGULATIONS. 



The next task to which the tribunal addressed itself was the fram- 

 ing of regulations. These regulations furnish the last hope for the 

 preservation of the fur seal as a commercial commodity. It is not 

 probable that any other nations having seal interests will be content 

 with less than the United States secured, nor is it likely they will 

 obtain more, and thus they represent the measure of protection all 

 seals are likely to receive in the future. 



After listening to an enormous mass of testimony some good, some 

 bad, and some very indifferent concerning seal life, the tribunal pro- 

 poses to preserve the Alaskan branch of the northern fur seal by pro- 

 hibiting sealing within a zone of 60 miles around the Pribilof Islands 

 by establishing a closed time, or time of no killing at sea, from May 1 

 to July 31 ; by permitting only sailing vessels to engage in the business 

 of seal hunting, and requiring them to carry a distinctive flag, to take 

 out a special license, and to keep a daily record of the catch and the sex 

 of the seals taken, these records to be communicated to each of the 

 two Governments at the close of the sealing season; by limiting the 

 weapons of capture to shotguns in the North Pacific and spears in 

 Bering Sea, and by requiring the two Governments to take such meas- 

 ures as will determine whether the hunters are fit to handle with suffi- 

 cient skill the weapons by means of which the seals are to be captured. 

 These regulations, which are to remain in force until they have been in 

 whole or in part abolished or modified by common agreement between 

 the Governments of the United States and Great Britain, are to be sub 

 niitted every five years to a new examination, so as to enable both 

 Governments to consider whether, in the light of past experience, there 

 is occasion for any modification of them. 



The three prime points in the regulations are: The zone around the 

 islands; the closed time of three months injected into the middle of the 

 sealing season, thus breaking it up, and the restriction of the use of 

 firearms to the Forth Pacific. 



First as to the zone : If there was any one fact clearly established by 

 the testimony of the pelagic sealers themselves and official experts it 

 was that in the summer season great numbers of seals, and especially 

 females, are found at long distances from the islands of Bering Sea, 

 distances two or three times greater than that of the protecting zone 

 provided by the regulations. Now, as the object was to preserve the 

 fur seals, it is proper to assume that the tribunal, prompted by a desire 

 to protect them, and acting in good faith, established such a zone as 

 they believed would practically prohibit the attack of the pelagic sealer; 

 but if this was so, then mere amount of distance was immaterial, and 

 in view of the fact that incessant fogs brood over the waters of Bering 

 Sea during the summer season, rendering it difficult to tell when a vessel 

 is within or without a zone, the limit of which can not be marked, why 

 not at once adopt that natural and well-defined boundary line, the 

 Aleutian chain? Just here arises the question: When vessels are 

 seized, whose word shall be accepted as to the locality of seizure the 

 pelagic sealer's or the seizing officer's? Does not this uncertainty, hav- 

 ing as it does an important bearing on the question of conviction, weaken 

 the regulations restraining influence on pelagic sealing? Aside from 

 questions of protection it seems to me that this part of the decision will 

 tend to increase dispute and bitterness rather than to diminish it. 



The adoption of the closed time means the recognition on the part of 



