IN BERING SEA AND NORTH PACIFIC. 93 



In consequence of the zealous and efficient ef- Cause <?f de- 



* crease of dead 



forts of the naval vessels charged with the pro- pup8, 

 tection of the seal herd and the enforcement of 

 the 'Modus Vivendi, few sealing vessels entered the 

 eastern half of Bering Sea in 1892, and those 

 waters were practically free from open-sea 

 hunters. If the cause of the mortality of 1891 

 among the pups was any of those advanced by 

 the Report, it is a remarkable and, for the opin- 

 ion of the Commissioners, an unfortunate cir- 

 cumstance that with the decrease of sealing in 

 Bering Sea dead pup-seals have decreased like- 

 wise. On the other hand, the increase of sealing taiity^on^uTsiau 

 in Asiatic waters about the Commander Islands 100 eries * 

 has been followed by a large increase of deaths 

 among" voung seals on the Russian rookeries. 1 



The destructiveness of the Bering Sea catch, Comparative 



.-,, . , vt -i -n •/» • 8 ^ zes °* Bering 



as compared with that m the North Pacific, is Sea and Pacific 



catches. 



further shown by the relative sizes of such 

 catches. A compilation made from the state- 

 ments of yearly catches of the Victoria sealing 

 fleet, attached to the Report of the British Com- 

 missioners (pp. 205-212), shows that the average 

 catch per vessel for three years (1889-1891) 

 along the Northwest Coast was 587, while the 

 Bering Sea catch for the same period of time was 

 783. 2 It is impossible to compute accurately the 



1 Joan Malowanski, post p. 374 ; N. A, Grebnitski, post p. 366. 

 3 Tables compiled from Commissioners' tables, post p. 411. 



