proached very closely the discovery of the parasite Uncinaria" 

 (U.S. Treasury 1898-99, pan 2, p. 272, footnote). 



One of the first studies of the pelagic life of the fur seal was 

 carried out by James G. Swan, a long-time resident of the 

 Olympic coast of Washington. He arrived at Neah Bay on 27 

 March 1883 "to study. . .the habits of the fur seals of Cape 

 Flattery, in order to ascertain in what respect, if any, they dif- 

 fer from the fur seals of the Pribiloff Islands" (Swan 1883: 

 201). From his own observations, and from interviews with In- 

 dians and pelagic sealers, he concluded (rightly) that a fur seal 

 pup taken from its mother's body here in June and July can 

 swim actively and may survive in captivity for several weeks. 

 He concluded (wrongly) that the pups may be born on off- 

 shore kelp, that the Cape Flattery seals originate somewhere to 

 the southward, and that they differ from the Pribilof stock. 



In 1885, Charles Haskins Townsend, resident naturalist of 

 the U.S. Fish Commission steamer Albatross, visited St. Paul 

 Island in September and collected 20 fur seals for the Smith- 

 sonian Institution. He returned to the Pribilofs eight times, in 

 1891 to 1896, inclusive, and in 1898 and 1900. He was the first 

 naturalist to examine fur seal stomach contents at sea, when 

 on board the Corwin in 1892. He was a member of the advi- 

 sory board of the Alaska Fisheries Service as late as 1911, at 

 least (Townsend 1887, 1898, 1899, 1905, 1910, 1911; Murray 

 1898b:19, 51; Osgood et al. 1915:23; Hulten 1940:306). We 

 suppose that he preserved his collections in alcohol, for a St. 

 Paul Islander was "fined for breaking in. . .and drinking alco- 

 hol belonging to Charles H. Townsend, naturalist, and becom- 

 ing stupidly drunk" (Tingle 1898:197). 



In 1886, George R. Tingle and L. A. Noyles, Treasury 

 agents, made the fourth "census" of fur seals. It was based on 

 estimates of Pribilof rookery areas occupied by seals, and it 

 yielded an estimate of 4,768,430 for the total population (Tin- 

 gle 1889:174, 177, 1898:188, 197; Jordan and Clark 1898a:84). 



Perhaps the first published photographs of Pribilof scenes 

 appeared in 1889 (U.S. Congress, House 1889). They represent 

 natives and buildings, but not seals. 



THE NORTH AMERICAN COMMERCIAL 



COMPANY (1890-1901) AND THE FIRST 



INTERNATIONAL TREATY (1891) 



On 12 March 1890 the Government re-leased the sealing priv- 

 ilege for 20 yr to another firm, the North American Commer- 

 cial Company. The Government also reduced the annual quota 

 to 60,000 seals for the first year and reserved the right to fix it 

 annually thereafter (U.S. Congress, House 1898, part 3, p. 

 452). On 6 June 1890 the Company supervised its first killing 

 and by the end of the year it had taken 20,945 skins (U.S. Con- 

 gress, House 1898, part 1, p. 241-248). By act of 21 April 1910 

 the system of leasing was abandoned and the lease of the Com- 

 pany expired on 1 May 1910 (Osgood et al. 1915:24). During 

 the second 20-yr lease, the average annual kill of seals on the 

 Pribilofs was 17,294 (Riley 1961:5-6). 



This was barely one-fifth of the take during the previous 

 20-yr period. What happened to the stock? It is reasonable to 

 assume that the herd was no larger just before the end of the 

 Russian tenure on the Pribilofs than during the 1940's when its 

 growth had stopped and the animals were pressing against the 

 natural population ceiling. With our present knowledge of the 

 breeding potential of the herd, we believe that land killing at 



the rate of 102,819 seals a year in 1871-89, following the 

 slaughter of the interregnum years, must have included sub- 

 stantial numbers of females and could by itself have been re- 

 sponsible for a steady, though slow, decline in the stock. Pe- 

 lagic sealing removed mainly females and was the straw that 

 broke the camel's back. According to the records, it drained 

 an average of 14,409 seals a year in the period 1870 to 1889 

 from waters off North America. The combination of land and 

 pelagic sealing, plus unknown losses at sea incidental to pelagic 

 sealing, may have averaged 120,000 to 125,000 a year. 



Was the Company illegally taking females from 1870 to 

 1889? It can be argued that they were killing no more than a 

 few hundred a year, and these by accident. In the first place, 

 the native sealers were bound by a long tradition of sparing fe- 

 males in the drives. In the second place, Government agents 

 were always present and would have reported any violations of 

 the terms of the lease. 



Charles J. Goff, as Treasury agent in charge of the seal fish- 

 eries, went to the Pribilofs in early 1890 to assist in the change- 

 over from the Alaska Commercial Company to the North 

 American Commercial Company management (Goff 1891). 

 He and Elliott visited Otter Island on 31 July 1890 and found 

 "that there were no seals hauled out, as was usual in the past" 

 (Goff 1891:3). Had pelagic sealing brought an end to the Otter 

 Island hauling ground in 1889? 



Goff was alarmed at the lack of seals on the Pribilofs. "It is 

 evident," he wrote, that pelagic sealing "and the indiscrim- 

 inate slaughter upon the islands, regardless of the future life of 

 the breeding rookeries, have at last with their combined de- 

 structive power reduced these rookeries to their present impov- 

 erished condition" (Goff 1891:5). Over the bitter protest of 

 the agent of the new company, he ordered sealing stopped on 

 20 July. During 1890, only 28,859 seals of the allowable quota 

 of 60,000 were killed. "Notwithstanding the fact that the seals 

 were looked upon as inexhaustible, and were officially re- 

 ported to be increasing as late as 1888, the time has suddenly 

 come when experiment and imagination must cease and the 

 truth be told" (Goff 1891:5). Thus, Goff, with Elliott's bless- 

 ing, pioneered in 1890 the practice of closing the sealing season 

 when field conditions warrant it, in advance of a prescribed 

 date. 



The Modus Vivendi of 1891-93 



By 1891 "the disastrous results of pelagic sealing had be- 

 come so evident that the governments of the United States and 

 Great Britain agreed upon a modus vivendi [temporary ar- 

 rangement] of June 15, 1981. . . . It closed the eastern part of 

 Bering Sea to pelagic sealing. . .and limited the killings on our 

 islands to 7,500 annually — the number required by the natives 

 for food. The agreement was put into effect too late to do any 

 good in 1891" (Evermann 1919: 268). The modus vivendi was 

 extended to cover the seasons of 1892 and 1893. The annual 

 kill on land during the 3 yr it was in effect was 14,406, 7,509, 

 and 7,390 (Cobb 1906:32). The pelagic kill was 59,568, 46,642, 

 and 30,812 (Riley 1961:5); closure of the Bering Sea to pelagic 

 sealing in the last 2 yr brought a reduction in take. 



As contemplated by the modus vivendi, a treaty was entered 

 into by the United States and Great Britain, signed on 29 Feb- 

 ruary 1892 and ratified on 7 May 1892. Its essential provisions 

 were: "1) The appointment of a commission to make investi- 

 gations concerning the habits of the fur seal, pelagic sealing, 



10 



