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 $1,410,721. 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.) 
1898 . — 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, 1897), 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 
