258 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
this generation nor the next will live to see its consummation. So with the sea 
mammals of which we have spoken. If to-day legislation stepped forth with its 
utmost power to protect, there will yet be years of unprofitable voyaging in the 
northern seas before they once more become plentiful. The belated arrangements 
relative to fur-seals in Bering Sea must be carefully carried out to insure any great 
commercial advantage from them in the future. The seal, whale, and walrus produce 
but one at a birth, the exception never being met in the seal, and if the others ever 
bear more there are but two, and these events happen but once in a year. Therefore, 
provided that a million seals are spared, and each cow is productive, the increase 
could be at the very utmost but one to every ten animals, and this, allowing a great 
percentage of the million to be females, the number of which never predominates to 
so great an extent. 
It is plain, therefore, that the larger animals upon which whole populations have 
depended for food and other life necessities, i. e., the three most valuable denizens of 
the sea, must at once receive adequate protection or they will be destroyed beyond 
remedy in a very short time. Cooperative international agreements are necessary 
whereby the creatures will be safe from molestation, not only on their breeding- 
grounds but wherever they gather. We maintain that they belong to the countries 
upon whose territory they congregate for the purpose of carrying out nature’s great 
design, and that there each government should execute the utmost prerogatives to 
secure safety for its property without any outside assistance, but only by peaceful 
international legislation can deterioration and future extinction be avoided. By no 
means do we mean to insure these animals alone from injudicious hunting, nor indeed 
do we desire to express belief that ttiey are tbe most important denizens of the water. 
For only commensurate to their value to certain inhabitants can their true usefulness 
be adjudicated, as likewise that of the salmon, cod, halibut, shad, herring or any 
other fish equally important for commerce and for food. Except that the inhabitants 
of the northeastern part of the United States, as also those of Nova Scotia, New- 
foundland, etc., are within reasonable distance of inland towns, their dependence 
upon the numbers and condition of the returns of their fishing fleets is almost as 
great as that of the Esquimaux upon the seal, whale, and walrus hunting. 
If then those fisheries have become of national and international importance the 
people of the eastern districts should have their fishing interests equally well guarded 
from injury. Left to their own devices, the true fisherman — one born to the trade 
and i-elyiug upon its success — will be careful not to injure his future prospects by 
endeavoring to catch all the fish at one great sweep. Nor will he waste the other fish 
that enter his net among the more valuable kinds. Instead, he will cast the flapping, 
gasping, wide-eyed strangers back into the water, there to perform their part in the 
world of nature. Therefore, it is not among the life hunters and fishermen that we 
must look for the destroyers of the fish or mammals, but to men or companies who 
take spasmodic interest in them for a time, simply as a money-making scheme. The 
protection and propagation of the more desirable food-fishes seem to have become 
established sufficiently to remedy many of the evils heretofore existing, but trouble 
still exists and will continue so long as indiscriminate catching is permitted. 
The reasons for this are obvious. Some years ago there was a company (or com- 
panies) formed called the “ Menhaden Fisheries,” ostensibly for taking menhaden, a 
comparatively useless fish, whose reputation was to be redeemed by making oil and 
