74 TRANSACTIONS. 1 897-8. 



parties who maintain that such methods of killing are in- 

 human and barbarous and ought not to be allowed. Those 

 who use this argument forget that this has been the method 

 pursued in the taking of all fur-bearing animals. More 

 beaver are trapped every year than there are fur-seals killed 

 at sea, and females as well as males are of course taken in this 

 way, and so with fur-bearing animals of all kinds, but no one 

 ever thinks of asking that the killing of such animals be pro- 

 hibited on that account. So, too, with all domestic animals 

 used for food, who thinks of asking when eating beef, mutton 

 or pork whether the animal whose flesh he is consuming was 

 a male or a female ? With regard to the fur-seal, however, it 

 is claimed that since it is a polygamuous animal and males 

 may be killed on the islands without undue disturbance of the 

 females, that that method alone should be pursued. There is 

 ample evidence that this is not the case. Long before pelagic 

 sealing could have had any effect upon the condition of the 

 seal rookeries, a great decrease was noted in the number of 

 seals of both sexes on the islands. This decrease can be | 

 attributed to no other cause than the excessive killing of male 

 seals, the annual quota of 100,000 leaving an insufficient 

 number to mature for procreative purposes. 



This aspect of the seal question has been dealt with in 

 my own reports and those of the British Behring Sea Com- 

 missioners, where all the facts which go to show that the 

 decrease in the number of fur-seals is due not to pelagic seal- 

 ing but to the methods pursued on the Pribylov Islands as 

 enumerated and discussed. 



