50 



ORDERS OF MAMMALS— SEALS AND SEA-LIONS 



1882.— Up to this time, the great Seal herd of 

 Bering Sea was in a state of equilibrium, and 

 yielded on the islands its annual quota of 100,000 

 "bachelor" Seals without sensible variation. 

 The number killed at sea in 1882 was 15,551. 



The Period of Contention. 



1886. — The catch of Seals at sea rose to 28,- 

 494. Of the large fleet of vessels then hunt- 

 ing Seals in Bering Sea, a number were seized 

 by the United States government vessels which 

 were guarding the Islands. These were chiefly 

 Canadian schooners, but some were American. 



1887. — The pelagic sealing fleet was increas- 

 ing each year. The United States began negotia- 

 tions with six foreign governments with a view 

 to securing co-operation in saving the Seals from 

 the extermination which threatened them at the 

 hands of the "poachers." 



1890. — The lease of the Alaska Commercial 

 Company terminated, and the North American 

 Commercial Company bid successfully for the 

 new lease of the Seal-taking privilege on the 

 Pribilof Islands. According to the calculations 

 of Mr. Elliott, the Seals on the Islands now 

 numbered 959,455. Except four years, from 

 1871 to 1889, over 100,000 male Seals had 

 been taken annually, on the Islands, and paid 

 for. The total revenue derived by our govern- 

 ment during that twenty-year period was $6,- 

 350,000. In 1890, the Seals killed and secured 

 at sea numbered 40,814, while the number killed 

 and lost was unknown. 



1891. — An agreement called a modus vivendi 

 (or way of living in peace) was made between 

 England and the United States, for three years, 

 designed to close Bering Sea to pelagic sealing 

 pending the result of the Paris Tribunal. Prac- 

 tically, it amounted to nothing. 



1893. — The case of the pelagic sealers was 

 tried before the Paris Tribunal, and through the 

 ineffective management of our case, we lost on 

 practically all our contentions. The pelagic 

 sealers emerged from the contest with full license 

 to kill Seals at sea everywhere outside a sixty- 

 mile radius of the Pribilof Islands. Because 

 Japan, China and Russia were not parties to 

 the Tribunal, the people of those nations were 

 not bound by the award which keeps American, 

 Canadian and English sealing vessels sixty miles 

 away from the Seal islands! 



1894.— In this year 61,838 Seals were killed 

 at sea and secured, while an unknown number 

 were killed and lost. 



1895. — Mr. J. B. Crowley (Member of Congress 

 in 1903), as a special agent of the Treasury De- 

 partment, assisted in counting the dead bodies 

 of about 30,000 Fur Seal "pups," on the Seal 

 islands, which had starved that year by reason 

 of the killing of their mothers while at sea in 

 search of fish. {Congressional Record.) There 

 were 56,291 Seals killed at sea, by the eighty-one 

 vessels engaged in pelagic sealing. On land the 

 number killed was, by order of the government, 

 reduced to 14,846. 



From 1890 to the end of 1895 (six years) the 

 cost to the United States Government of its 

 efforts to patrol the waters of Bering Sea, with 

 war vessels and revenue cutters, and protect — as 

 far as possible — the Seal herd from complete 

 annihilation, was fl, 410,721. Besides this, the 

 government expended $227,163 on its Treasury 

 Agents, and $473,000 was paid by the decision 

 of the Paris Tribunal, as " damages." to the men 

 who stole our Seals, and were caught in the act! 



1897. — The number of dead pups counted on 

 the breeding grounds, by Mr. Frederic A. Lucas 

 and others, was 21,750, and in October the 

 number of seals remaining alive of our herd was 

 estimated at 343,746. (D. S. Jordan. " Re- 

 port Fur Seal Investigation," 1896-97, p. 100.) 



189S.— By a law passed December 29, 1897, 

 all citizens of the United States were absolutely 

 prohibited from killing or capturing Fur Seals 

 at sea anywhere in Bering Sea, the Sea of Ok- 

 hotsk, or anywhere north of the 35th parallel of 

 north latitude. The ownership of any Fur Seal 

 skins taken in those waters was also prohibited, 

 under severe penalties. All skins from female 

 Seals, either raw or dressed, were also excluded 

 from our markets. 



From that date (December 29, 1S97), pelagic 

 sealing ceased to be an American industry. It 

 is now for England and Japan to say whether or 

 not it shall continue until all the mothers are 

 slaughtered, and all the pups starved to death. 



1903. — The situation of the Fur Seal has grown 

 desperate, and its fate is wavering in the balance. 

 The number now alive is about 200,000. While 

 Americans cannot now engage in pelagic sealing 

 under our flag, and no Canadians may inside the 

 sixty-mile limit, dozens of well-equipped sealing 



