192 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
. 
Moreover it is impossible to distinguish the male from the female seals in the water, 
or pregnant females from those that are not so. When the animals are killed in the 
water with firearms many sink at once and are never recovered, and some authorities 
state that not more than one out of three of those so slaughtered is ever secured. . 
This may, however, be an over-estimate of the number lost. 
It is thus apparent that to permit the destruction of the seals by the use of firearms, 
nets, or other mischievous means in Behring’s Sea would result in the speedy exter- 
mination of the race. ‘There appears to be no difference of opinion on this subject 
among experts. And the fact 1s so clearly and foreibly stated in the Report of the 
Inspector of Fisheries for British Columbia of the 51st of December, 1886, that I will 
quote therefrom the following pertinent passage: 
“There were killed this year, so far, from 40,000 to 50,000 fur seals which have been 
taken by schooners from San Francisco and Victoria. The greater number were 
killed in Behring’s Sea, and were nearly all cows or female seals. This enormous 
catch, with the increase which will take place when the vessels fitting up every year 
are ready, will, I am afraid, soon deplete our fur seal fishery, and it is a great pity 
that such a valuable industry could not in some way be protected. Si 
[Report of Thomos Mowat, Inspector of Fisheries for British Columbia; Sessional 
Papers, Vol. 15, No. 16, p. 268; Ottawa, 1887. ] 
The only way of obvi ating the lamentable result above predicted appears to be by 
the United States, Great Britain, and other interested Powers taking concerted 
action to prevent their citizens or subjects from killing fur seals with ‘jirearms, or 
other destructive weapons, north of 50° of north latitude, and between 160° of lon- 
gitude west and 170° of longitude east from Greenwich, during the period interven- 
ing between 15th April and ‘ist November. To prevent ‘the killing within a marine 
belt of forty or fifty miles from the Islands during that period would be ineffectual 
as a preservative measure. ‘This would clearly De so during the approach of the 
seals to the Islands. And after their arrival there such a limit of protection would 
also be insufficient; since the rapid progress of the seals through the water enables 
them to go great distances from the islands in so short a time that it has been caleu- 
lated that an ordinar y seal could go to the Aleutian Islands and back, in all a dis- 
tance of 360 or 400 miles, in less thana day. 
On the Pribyloft Islands themselves, where the killing is at present under 
174 ~=the direction of the Alaska Commercial Company, which by the terms of its 
contract is not permitted to take over 100,000 skins a year, no females, pups, 
or old bulls are ever killed, and thus the breeding of the animals is not interfered 
with, The old bulls are the first to reach the islands, where they await the coming 
of the females. As the young bulls arrive they are driven away by the old bulls to 
the sandy part of the islands, by themselves. And these are the animals that are 
driven inland and there killed by clubbing, so that the skins are not perforated and 
discrimination is exercised in each case. 
That the extermination of the fur se: uls must soon take place unless they are pro- 
tected from destruction in Behring’s Sea is shown by the fate of the animal in other 
parts of the world, in the absence of concerted action among the nations interested 
for its preservation. Formerly many thousands of seals were obtained annually 
from the South Pacific Islands, and from the coasts of Chiliand South Africa. They 
were also common in the Falkland Islands and the adjacent seas. But in those 
islands, where hundreds of thousands of skins were formerly obtained, there have 
been taken, according to best statistics, since 1880, less than 1,500 skins. In some 
places the indiscriminate slaughter, especially by use of fire- arms, has in a few years 
resulted in completely breaking up extensive rookeries. 
At the present time it is estimated that out of an ageregate yearly yield of 185,000 
seals from all parts of the globe over 130,000, or more than two-thirds, are obtained 
from the rookeries on the American and Russian islands in Behring’s Sea. Of the 
remainder, the larger part are taken in Behring’s Sea, although such taking, at least on 
such a scale, in that quarter is a comparatively recent thing. But if the killing of 
the fur seal there with fire-arms, nets, and other destructive implements were per- 
mitted, hunters would abandon other exhausted places of pursuit for the more pro- 
ductive field of Behring’s Sea, where extermination of this valuable animal would 
also rapidly ensue. 
It is manifestly for the interests of all nations that so deplorable a thing should 
not be allowed to occur. As has already been stated, on the Pribyloff Islands this 
Government strictly limits the number of seals that may be killed under its own 
lease to an American Company; and citizens of the United States have, during the 
past year, been arrested, and ten American vessels seized for killing fur seals in 
Behring’s Sea. 
England, however, has an especially great interest in this matter, in addition to 
that which she must feel in preventing the extermination of an animal which con- 
tributes so much to the gain and comfort of her people, Nearly all undressed fur 
