INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION FOR THE DENIZENS OF THE SEA AND 



WATERWAYS. 



BY BUSHROD W. JAMES, A. M., M. D. 



It is clear to the thoughtful mind that there is a yearly increasing necessity for 

 economy in several directions, none of which is more decidedly marked than that 

 concerning the denizens of the sea. That a deplorable mistake has been made by 

 men and corporations in hunting the whale, walrus, and seal, until the first two are 

 almost exterminated, while the like danger regarding the other is now agitating a 

 great part of two continents, is sufficient apology for the reiteration of the theme 

 selected for this paper. 



Impelled with a keen desire for wealth, men will not pause to think that there is a 

 serious menace to human existence in the wholesale destruction of any animal upon 

 which it has relied for sustenance and clothing, not to mention warmth and shelter. 

 Nor can they realize, when vessels return from whaling voyages with cargoes insuffi- 

 cient to meet expenses, that the decreasing animal population of coast and island on 

 their routes is due to the same cause. The animals have been hunted too greedily 

 and have either been destroyed or driven from their haunts, leaving men destitute 

 who have always depended upon their annual return for nearly every life necessity. 

 No one can accurately estimate the sufferings that have resulted in times past in 

 diminishing numbers of Indians and Esquimaux along these seaboards; and common 

 justice questions, is it right to take for one man's gain the food supply of inhabitants 

 of American soil, bringing helpless fellow creatures to starvation and death. 



Careful study will show that however valuable oil, whalebone, or ivory may be to 

 commerce, a judicious economy in their production must be more advantageous to a 

 steadily lucrative business than could be a few years of surprising overproduction 

 and an aftermath of no returns for expensive expeditions. Such reports have come 

 from the whaling fleet sent out from San Francisco in the last two years at least. It 

 was due to want of success that the whalers are now ice-bound and in danger of death 

 in the great frozen Arctic Ocean. Possibly if whaling and walrus hunting (or, as it 

 is called, ivory hunting) are legally forbidden by the United States Government and 

 Kussia and Canada for a time, the great mammals will return to their old foraging 

 and breeding grounds. If not, the dealers in such articles and the men heretofore 

 engaged in the capture of the animals may look upon their occupations as practically 

 discontinued for all time. 



In support of this we need only point to the western plains, over which once 

 roamed buffalos and antelopes by the million. So plentiful were the herds that the 

 sportsmen of the world came to aid us in their extermination. Even if the plan for 

 the protection and reproduction of the buffalo succeeds, which is doubtful, neither 



F. C. B. 189717 257 



