EFFECT OF MODUS VIVENDI. 147 
In addition to this total there are 95,000 skins which have been taken, but for 
which the definite locality of capture has not been determined, making a grand total 
of 988,047 animals, or approximately 1,000,000 seals, known to have been killed at sea 
from the combined Russian and American herds. 
THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE SEALS KILLED BUT LOST. 
The figures just given include only animals actually secured and whose skins were 
brought to market. No attempt has been made to form any estimate of the number 
-of animals which escaped to die of their wounds, or of those killed outright, whose 
bodies sank before they could be secured, The loss arising from these sources is 
considerable even at the present time, where firearms are used, and in the early days 
of their use it must have been very great. 
EARLY SEALING CONFINED TO PRIBILOF HERD. 
Until the year 1891 all pelagic sealing was confined to the Pribilof herd, and prior 
to the year 1883 all the seals were taken off the Northwest coast. After 1883 sealing 
in Bering Sea was added. In 1891 a modus vivendi was declared on June 15, designed 
to close Bering Sea.' This measure was renewed in the two succeeding years, pending 
the results of the Arbitration Tribunal. It may be remarked in this connection that 
the importance of this modus vivendi of 1891-1893, in its relation to the herd, was not 
great. Its promulgation in 1891 was too late to make it effective, as the fact that the 
herd lost 19,000 more seals at sea in that year than in 1890 abundantly shows. In 1892 
it merely checked the increase of the catch, leaving it still 6,000 more than it was 
before the measure was put into effect. In 1893, when the catch fell to 30,000, which 
was but 10,000 less than the catch of 1890, the herd derived some benefit. Of course, 
jf we take into account what the herd might have lost through the increase of the 
‘catch in'this period, the benefit to the herd was greater. But it was at best only a 
postponement of the loss, as in 1894 the catch rose immediately to 61,000—double that 
of 1893—and was in ‘1895 still 16,000 greater than the catch of 1890 ; its decline since 
that time has been due to the diminishing herd. j 
THE SUSPENSION OF LAND KILLING. 
On the other hand the suspension of killing on land only released young males to 
grow up which are now, as idle and superfluous bulls, a menace to the rookeries. In 
the case of the pelagic sealers the measure only postponed the time of taking the seals, 
as the females which escape in one season are still avaiiable the next, while on land 
the young males released were irrevocably lost to the Government and the lessees, 
because before normal conditions were.resumed they had taken on the wig of the half 
bull, and their’skins became of no value. The suspension of land and sea killing, 
therefore, during the modus vivendi, was at best of very doubtful value. 
MODUS VIVENDI TRANSFERRED. SEALING TO ASIATIC SIDE. 
The modus vivendi, however, had this effect: It influenced a certain number of 
sealing vessels to try their luck on the Asiatic side of the Pacific Ocean. These, in 
1See footnote to page 144 of this volume. — 
