130 SEALS AND SEA-LIONS 



sea by the eighty-one vessels engaged in pelagic sealing. On 

 land the number killed was, by order of the Government, re- 

 duced to 14,846. 



From 1890 to the end of 1895 (six years) the cost to the 

 United States Government of its patrol of the waters of 

 Bering Sea, with war vessels and revenue cutters, in order to 

 protect as far as possible the Seal herd from complete an- 

 nihilation, was $1,410,721. Besides this, the Government 

 expended $227,163 on its Treasury agents, and $473,000 was 

 paid, by the decision of the Paris Tribunal, as "damages" to 

 the men who stole our Seals and were caught in the act! 



1897. The number of dead pups counted on the breeding- 

 grounds, by Dr. Frederic A. Lucas and others, was 21,750, 

 and in October the number of seals remaining alive of our 

 herd was estimated at 343,746. (D. S. Jordan, "Report, Fur- 

 Seal Investigation," 1896-7, p. 100.) 



1898. By a law passed December 29, 1897, all citizens of 

 the United States were absolutely prohibited from killing or 

 capturing Fur-Seals at sea elsewhere in Bering Sea, the Sea 

 of Okhotsk, or elsewhere north of the 35th parallel of north 

 Latitude. The ownership of any Fur-Seal skins taken in those 

 waters was also prohibited, under severe penalties. All skins 

 from female Seals, either raw or dressed, were also excluded 

 from our markets. From that date (December 29, 1897) 

 pelagic sealing ceased to be an American industry. 



1903. By this date the situation of the Fur-Seal had grown 

 desperate. The number then alive was about 200,000. While 

 Americans could not engage in pelagic sealing under our flag, 

 and no Canadians might inside the sixty -mile limit, dozens of 



