746 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
after the other, to no good result whatever; finally, however, the supply abruptly 
fell from an expected 20,000 to 12,000 only from both islands in 1834—‘‘ all that could 
be got with all possible exertion.” 
Then the Russians awoke to the fact that if they wished to preserve these fur- 
bearing interests of the Pribyloff Islands from ruin, that they must stop killing, 
wholly stop for anumber of years—stop until the renewal of the exhausted rookeries 
was manifest, and easily recognized; this Zapooska of 1835, which they then ordered, 
is the date of the renewed lease of life which these rookeries took, and which by 
1857 had restored them to the splendid condition in which they were when they 
passed into the hands of the United States; and which now, after twenty-two years 
of killing since 1868 and under the recent Regulations of 1870, together with the 
pelagic sealing since 1886, we find again threatened with speedy extinction unless 
full measures are at once adopted for their preservation and restoration on land, and 
in the sea—half measures will not do—they failed in the Russian period signally, 
an they will as signally fail with us if we yield in the slightest degree to any 
argument for their adoption, 
It is interesting, therefore, to study the figures which Veniaminoy gives us of the 
yield from these islands during that period extending down from 1817 to 1887—study 
it in connection with his statement of what those attempts were, and which were 
being made, futile efforts by the old Company to build up the business, and yet con- 
tinue sealing; until, finally, after seventeen years of continual diminution and 
repeated introduction of half-way methods of restoration, the end came abruptly, and 
what ought to have been done at first was finally forced in 1834—the absolute rest of 
the rookeries in 1835 came, and practically continued until 1846-50; then a gradual 
rise above 10,000 ‘‘holluschickie” or young male fur-seals per annum began to be 
safely taken; and, by 1854, the exhausted and nearly ruined rookeries of St. Paul 
and St. George were able to yield 35,000 prime fur-seal pelts without the slightest 
injury to them, and by 1857-60 they were so numerous that the Russians ceased to 
regard them as objects of care, and thereafter governed their annual catch by the 
demand outside alone—taking as the market called for them any where from 40,000 to 
80,000 annually. 
As matters stand to-day on the seal islands the situation is very much the same as 
it wasin 1834. Then it was expected that 20,000 seals would be taken, but only 12,000 
were secured ‘‘with all possible exertion.” This year it was expected that 
60 60,000 fine skins would be taken, but only 21,000 have been secured with all pos- 
sible exertion, nearly half this catch being small, or 54-63 1b. skins—raking and 
scraping the rookery margins without a day’s intermission from the opening to the 
closing of the season; of this work of 1890 I give you in this Report the fullest detail 
of its progression, day to day, the merciful ending of it, ordered so happily by you. 
It will be promptly observed from astudy of this record of the Russians which has 
been so plainly and so honestly given to us by Veniaminov and Shaiesnickoy, that the 
Russians, during their control, were faced at two periods with the prospect of a 
speedy extermination of these fur-seal rookeries of Alaska; in 1806 and in 1807 they 
stopped all killing on these Islands of St. Paul and St. George, but began to kill 
again in 1810—too soon. Veniaminov’s record and account shows that from 1817, in 
spite of everything that they could do, save stopping short of all killing, ‘only 
made matters worse.” 
Finally, in 1854, with the second and positive threat of swift extermination again 
facing them, the Russians reluctantly surrendered, and ordered a rest which lasted 
seven years, ere any beginning was fairly made to kill more than a few thousand 
young male seals annually. In the first year only 100 of such animals were taken, 
the number being very slowly raised year after year until 1847-50. 
A careful review of my investigation, therefore, warrants me in respectfully 
urgine— 
1. That no driving and killing of fur-seals for tax and shipment on the seal islands 
of Alaska be permitted by the Government for a period of at least seven years from 
date; and 
2. That the co-operation of Great Britain and Russia be secured in perfecting our 
international close time, by which all killing of fur-seals in the open waters of 
Behring’s Sea will be prohibited during the breeding season of these animals, and 
in order that the Representatives of Great Britain and Russia may see the truth of 
my statement as to what threatens to exterminate these animals if pelagic sealing 
as well as terrestrial sealing is not at once stopped; that a Commission of British, 
Russian, and American experts be invited to visit the seal islands next summer and 
report fairly upon the subject. 
In concluding this introduction to my work of the past season, and its result, I 
desire to say that I have been exceedingly careful in gathering my data upon w hich 
I base all statement of fact and opinion, and to secure these data I have literally 
lived out upon the field itself, where those facts alone can be gathered honestly, or 
else they had better not be gathered at all. 
