PUR-SEAIi INDUSTRY OF THE COMMANDER ISLANDS 
299 
killed on the Islands in the same period was 119,708. The pelagic catch was therefore considerablj' 
more than twice as large as that on the islands, while the loss to the herd from that cause was much 
greater, due to starved pups and seals shot but not secured. It is certainly no exaggeration to 
say that the actual loss to the herd in those six years has averaged 100,000 a year, more than one-half 
of which were females, * * *. 
It will thus be necessary only to pick up the historical thread of the destruction 
since the close of the investigations of 1897. 
Fig. 10.— North Rookery, Bering Island, showing distribution of breeding seals in 1895, according to Stejneger 
HISTORY OF THE COMMANDER ISLANDS FUR-SEAL ROOKERIES AND FUR-SEAL 
INDUSTRY SINCE 1897 , 
CONDITIONS AT THE END OF 1897 
Two factors played an important role in the decrease of seals on the Commander 
Islands — the action of the Russian administration, which, in negotiations with the 
British pelagic sealing interests, accepted the 30-mile zone limit without time 
restriction, and the optimism of the local officials, whose estimates of the number 
of seals still on the rookeries were based wholly upon the so-called counts of 
