182 THE FUR SEALS OF THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 
To the pelagic sealer the close season offers no impediment and entails no loss. 
He ean rest assured that the seals he is prevented from taking in the North Pacific 
will be more easily taken in Bering Sea in August, when the storms of the early 
summer are over and the conditions in every way more favorable. In the meantime 
he is given opportunity to refit his vessel, or he may cross over to the Asiatic side at 
the beginning of the close season and prey upon the Commander herd before returning 
to Bering Sea in August. 
On the whole, it is difficult to see how a more comfortable and convenient set of 
regulatious could have been prepared had the pelagic sealers themselves drawn them 
up. Itis difficult to see how they could be made more destructive to the herd if that 
had been their deliberate intent. 
THE COST OF ENFORCING THE REGULATIONS. 
It is not enough, however, that these regulations legalize the destruction of the 
herd. They are necessarily maintained at a tremendous cost. The Government of 
the United States paid for the maintenance of its patrol in the North Pacific and in 
Bering Sea during the period from April to October, 1896, the sum of $176,380.16. 
The cost to Great Britain for her share in the patrol was smaller, but yet a 
considerable sum. 
THE FAILURE OF THE REGULATIONS. 
It is scarcely necessary to state that the regulations of the Paris Award have 
proved a signal failure. As has already been shown, the herd has continued to 
decline steadily under them. The herd suffered its greatest loss under the first year 
of their operation, when 61,000 animals were taken at sea. In the year 1896, of the 
catch taken in Bering Sea, 84 per cent were females, practically all of them pregnant 
and having nursing pups dependent upon them. Between the seasons of 1896 and 
1897 the breeding herd suffered a diminution of from 12 to 15 per cent, notwithstand- 
ing the fact that the pelagic catch had largely declined through the exhaustion of the 
herd. To this it is only necessary to add that under the rigid patrol which has been 
maintained the regulations have been strictly enforced and fully complied with. No 
further condemnation of these measures for the “protection and preservation of the 
seals” could be expected. 
THE REDEEMING FEATURE OF THE REGULATIONS. 
The one redeeming feature about the regulations is the final provision for their 
reconsideration and revision. The only difficulty here is that the trial period fixed at 
five years was too long. One season would have been sufficient to test them. They 
were calculated to show their quality at once. As a matter of fact it was clearly 
demonstrated by the recorded catch of the first season of their operation that they 
had stimulated rather than retarded pelagic sealing and consequently had heightened 
the decline of the herd. That a fleet of 87 vessels in the first year of the operation 
of the regulations should have been able to take 61,000 seals, whereas 115 vessels, 
in 1891, before pelagic sealing was interfered with, took but 59,000, was clear enough 
evidence that the regulations had only altered matters for the worse. 
