22 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 



* 

 20 years of its incumbency the North American Commercial Co. took on the Pribilof 

 Islands a total of 342,651 skins. The revenue to the Government was $3,453,844. 

 The leasing system was discontinued in 1910. 



THE GROWTH OF PELAGIC SEALING. 



Until 1889 the Alaska Commercial Co. had little difficulty in getting its annual 

 quota of 100,000 skins. For some years previously an additional catch was obtained by 

 independent operators who killed seals at sea during their migrations and feeding excur- 

 sions to and from the islands. These pelagic sealers originally comprised chiefly Cana- 

 dians and Americans, but in later years many Japanese engaged in the business. 

 Beginning to operate extensively about 1879 they rapidly increased in number and 

 in 1889 their recorded catch was 29,858 seals. In addition, as became evident from later 

 investigations, they killed many seals which could not be retrieved, and still more 

 important, from 60 to 80 per cent of their catch were females whose death involved the 

 loss of their unborn pups, or the starvation of newborn ones left on land, or both. 

 During the period from 1868 to 1878, inclusive, the recorded pelagic catch totaled 72,134. 

 From 1879 to 191 1, inclusive, the total catch was 904,506. The largest recorded catch, 

 59,568 skins, occurred in 1891. 



THE PARIS TRIBUNAL AND THE MODUS VIVENDI. 



Recognizing that the brutal and wasteful killing at sea was greatly against the 

 interests of the herd, the United States sought to establish jurisdiction in Bering Sea as 

 a closed sea and seized a number of Canadian sealing vessels found operating there. 

 This led to a controversy with Great Britain, which resulted in a treaty concluded 

 February 29, 1892, consigning the whole matter to the deliberation of a tribunal of 

 arbitration which met at Paris in the summer of 1893. Pending this treaty and the 

 result of the deliberations of the tribunal, an agreement between the United States and 

 Great Britain was entered into in June, 1891, by which the latter country prohibited 

 British subjects from sealing in the eastern part of Bering Sea, and the United States 

 prohibited all killing whatever by its citizens excepting that of 7,500 seals annually 

 for the food of the natives of the Pribilofs. Though originally effective for only one 

 year, this agreement, now known as the "Modus vivendi," was renewed in 1892 and 1893. 



Among the results of the work of the Paris tribunal was a set of regulations closing 

 to pelagic sealing a zone of 60 miles in radius about the Pribilof Islands, and prohibiting 

 it entirely between May i and July i. These Regulations went into effect in the summer 

 of 1894, and of course affected only the citizens of the United States and Great Britain. 

 They were subject to reexamination at intervals of five years. The experience of a 

 single season showed that the result was ineffective, since the catch from pelagic sealing 

 increased, and the seal herd continued to decline. The United States, therefore, 

 requested Great Britain to consider the revision of the regulations. This request was 

 declined, and in 1896 this country accepted the proposal of Great Britain that the two 

 countries institute independent scientific investigations of the entire matter at the close 

 of the five-year trial period. These investigations were made in 1896 and 1897 and a 

 voluminous report on the work of the American investigators was published in 1898. 

 In the meantime, on December 29, 1897, Congress had enacted a law forbidding American 

 citizens from engaging in pelagic sealing at any time or place. 



