MAKING THE FUR SEAL ABUNDANT 
By Hucu M. Smiru 
UNITED STATES DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES 
HE fifteenth of December, Ig11, 
i was the time set for the formal 
adoption of one of the most im- 
portant international conservation meas- 
ures that has ever been effected. Pur- 
suant to a convention or treaty concluded 
at Washington on July 7, 1911, by the 
United States, Great Britain, Russia, and 
Japan, the fur seals of the north Pacific 
Ocean will receive for the first time a 
form of protection that has been shown 
to be absolutely necessary, and is guar- 
anteed by these four great powers for a 
term of 15 years. 
The agreement prohibits absolutely 
pelagic sealing, or the killing of fur seals 
while in the water, and places the legiti- 
mate killing of surplus male seals on land 
under the direct control of the govern- 
ments interested. 
This convention insures the rescue of 
the depleted fur-seal herds from com- 
mercial extinction; prohibits the citizens 
or subjects of the contracting powers 
from engaging in a wasteful, cruel occu- 
pation, and removes a long-standing dis- 
turbance of international good-will. 
Fur seals inhabit certain parts of both 
the northern and southern hemispheres, 
but the most important herds live in the 
north Pacific, represent three distinct but 
closely related species, and are known as 
the Alaskan, Russian, and Japanese fur 
seals, respectively. Although the north- 
ern seals roam widely on the high seas, 
they always resort for breeding purposes 
to certain definite bits of land, and it is 
this habit which gives particular nations 
property rights in them and has created 
several international complications. 
The Japanese seals visit no land except 
Robben Island and certain islands of the 
Kurile chain; the Russian seals never go 
to other shores than those of the Com- 
mander Islands, off the coast of Kam- 
chatka; and the Alaskan seals, after dis- 
tributing themselves over the eastern 
part of the Pacific Ocean as far south 
as southern California, make an annual 
pilgrimage to islands in Bering Sea. 
Of all the fur seals, the most numer- 
ous and important are those of Alaska, 
which came to the United States with all 
the other resources of the territory when 
Russia ceded her jurisdiction. The Alas- 
kan fur seals have for many years been 
the subject of protracted national and 
international discussion, and during the 
years I910 and IQ11 came in for an 
unusual amount of attention. In addi- 
tion to the consideration received during 
the diplomatic negotiations resulting in 
the treaty already mentioned, Congress 
has enacted a new law relating to the 
seal islands, a new dispensation has come 
in the administration of the islands, and 
the government as represented by the 
Bureau of Fisheries has for the first time 
engaged in the business of taking and 
marketing seal skins. 
The “new dispensation,” as shown in 
the subsequent text, includes permanent 
scientific observation and control of the 
herd, discretionary authority to suspend 
all killing, and discretionary power to 
lease the sealing privileges or to exploit 
them as a government monopoly. 
THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS, WHERE THE SEALS 
BREED (SEE MAP, PAGE II41) 
The only land to which the Alaskan 
fur seals ever resort is the group of 
small, rocky islands lying in Bering Sea 
215 miles north of Unalaska Island, the 
nearest land. These bits of bleak land 
have come to be popularly known as the 
Seal Islands, from their most conspicu- 
ous feature; but among geographers they 
are called the Pribilof Islands, in honor 
of the Russian navigator who, in 1786, 
while in the employ of a Kamchatkan 
trading company, followed the migrating 
seals and ascertained for the first time 
