54 A HISTORY OF THE WHALE FISHERIES 



Kamschatka, Siberia, the Kadjak archipelago, the 

 Aleutian Islands, the Pribyloff, and Commander 

 Islands, and the others in Behring Sea, and Sakhalin 

 and others, and it was declared at the same time 

 that while the Sea of Okhotsk, from its geographical 

 position, was a Russian inland sea, foreigners were 

 allowed to take whales there. Some of these claims 

 were revived by the United States Government 

 (which had in 1867 acquired Alaska by purchase 

 from Russia) at the Behring Sea arbitration in 1891. 



These attempts at regulating the whaling industry, 

 though they had national interests in the forefront, 

 and the protection of the whales in the background, 

 are worth consideration, since they prove how 

 difficult it is for one nation acting alone to protect 

 an animal like the whale. 



The Norwegian Government has made certain 

 enactments, having for their object the restriction or 

 prohibition of whaling in certain areas off the 

 Norwegian coasts, and although these regulations 

 were enacted more for the protection of the local sea 

 fisheries, which it is alleged were detrimentally 

 affected by whaling, than for the protection of the 

 whale, some of the provisions may be noted here. 



In the Norwegian whaling law of June, 1896, a 

 close season for whaling was prescribed from the 

 ist January to the end of May, off the coast of 

 the counties of Finmark and Tromso. It was 

 likewise forbidden to hunt the whale in such a 

 manner as to leave it to chance whether the whale 

 was recovered or not. This regulation is more 



