MAKING THE FUR SEAL ABUNDANT 
in a dispute with the United States and 
Great Britain, resulting in the treaties of 
1824 and 1825, which recognized Rus- 
sia’s claim to jurisdiction over the whole 
of Bering Sea, Okhotsk Sea, and other 
water inclosed by Russian territory. 
From the outset the company placed 
a rational limit on the number of animals 
killed each year, and in the light of later 
experience it is evident that the herd 
would have been fully able to sustain the 
annual harvest of skins if these had been 
taken only from the males. But males 
and females alike were slaughtered in 
ignorance or disregard of the polygamous 
character of the seals, and as early as 
1806 it was necessary to suspend opera- 
tions for two years in order to permit 
the herd to recuperate. 
When killing was resumed, however, 
it was along the same destructive lines, 
and the mighty fur-seal host continued 
to dwindle until by 1834 its numbers 
were reduced to one-fifteenth or one- 
twentieth of those present in the first 
years after the discovery of the islands. 
‘The suspension of all killing for a term 
of years then ensued, and by the time 
Operations were resumed the company 
officials had come to realize that the fe- 
males should be protected, and later the 
sacrifice of old bulls and young pups was 
stopped. 
The result was a remarkable recupera- 
tion and increase in the herd that afford 
a valid basis for the belief that speedy 
recovery of the decimated herds of 
Alaska, Russia, and Japan may follow 
the elimination of the factor responsible 
for their present condition, namely, the 
indiscriminate killing of males and fe- 
males at sea. When Russia ceded her 
jurisdiction over Alaska, the Pribilof 
fur-seal herd had attained a degree of 
prosperity closely approaching its condi- 
tion at the time of its discovery, and we 
thus came into possession of a resource 
but little impaired and had a knowledge 
of its significant history to guide us in 
its treatment. 
AMERICAN CONTROL OF THE SEAL ISLANDS 
It is a cause for congratulation that 
no country has dealt with its seal life in 
1149 
a more intelligent, humane, and zealous 
manner than the United States, and it 
was a cruel fate that for so many years 
rendered our efforts futile. The only oc- 
casion when there was any laxity in our 
administration of the seal islands was 
during the first years of our possession, 
when the government was still unorgan- 
ized anywhere in the territory and vari- 
ous private companies landed parties on 
the Pribilofs and took seal skins without 
any government supervision or restric- 
tion. It was in that year that the largest 
killing in the history of the islands was 
made; the number of skins obtained was 
probably not less than 300,000, and may 
have reached 375,000; but this take was 
not indiscriminate, was confined to bache- 
lors, and had no effect on the perma- 
nence of the herd. 
After full consideration of the best 
method of handling its fur-seal wards 
and managing its fur-seal industry, the 
government decided to place the control 
of the islands under the Treasury De- 
partment and to lease the sealing privi- 
leges to a responsible company. Congress 
gave effect to this decision in 1870, and 
in the same year the competitive offer or 
bid of the Alaska Commercial Company 
was accepted as the one most likely to 
subserve the “interests of the govern- 
ment, the native inhabitants, the parties 
heretofore engaged in the trade, and the 
protection of the seal fisheries.” By the 
terms of this lease the company for a 
period of 20 years was given the right to 
take annually 100,000 male seals over 
one year of age, and was required to 
provide for the subsistence and educa- 
tion of the natives. In 1874 Congress 
gave the government officers closer con- 
trol of the situation by authorizing them 
to determine the number of seals that 
might be taken each year. In return for 
this monopoly, the lessee agreed to pay 
to the United States an annual rental of 
$55,000 and a tax of $2.62%4 on each 
skin taken. The company took its annual 
quota of skins and dropped from the 
- scene when its contract expired in 1880. 
During the later years of this com- 
pany’s lease there began a decrease in 
the herd, which became strikingly evi- 
