IS A CESSATION OF LAND KILLING ADVISABLE? 227 



herd daring its migration; the territorial limit without a time limitation has been 

 proved to be utterly valueless, and it can bo asserted with confidence that if a 

 sufficient time limit were to be adopted the territorial limit might be done away with 

 entirely. 



The third difference between the regulations in American and in Eussian waters is 

 that it is forbidden to use firearms for killing the seals in the American portion of 

 Bering Sea, while no such prohibition obtains on the Eussian side. 



With regard to the proposed branding of the female seals as a protective measure 

 it may be stated that while it is entirely feasible on the Pribilof Islands, the branding 

 can only be accomplished on one of the Commander Islands, viz, on Bering Island. On 

 the two rookeries of this island it would be a very easy undertaking to brand every 

 female pup, while on Copper Island, on account of the inaccessibility of the rookery 

 grounds, the scheme is utterly impossible. 



IS A TEMPORARY STOPPAGE OP KILLING- ON LAND ADVISABLE ? 



The propriety of prohibiting the killing of fur seals on land for a period of five 

 years, as a means of building up the seal herd, has of late been discussed by the 

 Eussian authorities. The success in former years of such a cessation of killing on 

 land, or " zapuska" as it is called, as well as its advantage in the management of the 

 fox and sea-otter hunt, have undoubtedly influenced them; but they have plainly 

 failed to see the difference between those old zapuskas, which protected the females 

 as well as the males, and the zapuska of the present, the employment of which would 

 only mean the protectian of the males alone when on land. When at sea, they would 

 be subjected to the same danger from the pelagic hunter as the females. It shows 

 that they have utterly failed to gra'sp the two essential points of the seal question as 

 it stands to-day, viz, that the decline of the seal herd is solely due to pelagic sealing, 

 and that the increase and consequent rehabilitation of the herd depends solely upon 

 the preservation of the female seals. If pelagic sealing be stopped, no zapuska is 

 necessary, or, as I shall show, it will be directly hurtful. If pelagic sealing be 

 continued, a zapuska will not only not protect the herd on shore, but it will directly 

 result in increased catches for the pelagic sealers as long as the zapuska lasts, since 

 they will have the additional males to prey upon which will have been spared on land. 



Now, the future prosperity of the seal herd depends upon the number of females 

 it contains ; the number of bachelors is irrelevant in this connection. Suppose pelagic 

 sealing be suppressed and a five years' zapuska instituted on the Commander Islands : 

 what would result? At the end of the five years there would be exactly as many 

 females as if no zapuska had been, not one more (possibly some less), because no 

 female seals would have been killed even if the zapuska had not been kept. But 

 there certainly would be a great many more killable seals at the beginning of the 

 sixth year than during any one of the preceding years. A little reflection, however, 

 will show that their total number must be less than the total sum of killed during 

 these preceding years, inasmuch as the 2 to 4 years' old bachelors of these years 

 would have escaped the killing and become sikatchi, that is, available rookery bulls, 

 and consequently unfit for killing during the zapuska. And how would it look on 

 the rookeries? Copper Island is already overstocked with bulls to such an extent 

 that it would greatly benefit the herd to decimate them now; with a five years' 

 zapuska the conditions would be infinitely worse. On Bering Island there is no 

 overstocking of males now, but there is nothing to indicate that there are not enough 



