July 15, 1911-] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
95 
The Fur Seal Agreement. 
Washington, D. C., July 8. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: That the convention looking to the 
conservation of the North Pacific fur seals, which 
was signed yesterday by the representatives of the 
United States, Great Britain, Russia and Japan, is 
a great step toward an international game law 
and an indication of the possibility of an uni¬ 
versal arbitration treaty, is the opinion of Secre¬ 
tary Nagel, of the Department of Commerce and 
Labor, who is one of the American representa¬ 
tives at the conference. “I regard it as a won¬ 
derful advance,” said the secretary, “as show¬ 
ing how easy it is for the representatives of 
friendly powers to reach a common basis upon 
which to deal with matters about which there are 
differences of opinion.” Russia and the United 
States, he said, had practically agreed upon 
the abolition of pelagic sealing, the United 
States because of its large and valuable herds 
upon the Pribiloff Islands, and Russia because 
of her herds on the Commander Islands. Japan, 
however, he said, practically had her herd 
wiped out by pelagic sealing, which had rather 
been encouraged than otherwise, while Canada 
had everything to gain and nothing to lose by 
pelagic sealing. The four countries have differ¬ 
ent interests, and yet after discussing the sub¬ 
ject in all of its bearings the conference was 
finally able to reach an agreement which is satis¬ 
factory to ail concerned. 
It was not to the interest of the world to have 
the fur seal exterminated, the secretary thought, 
and that fate was unavoidable if pelagic seal¬ 
ing were to be continued. The reason for it is 
that in pelagic sealing it is the female seals that 
are slaughtered. The seal is a polygamous ani¬ 
mal, and one buck seal will dominate a large 
harem. Their natural regulation of their affairs 
is little short of wonderful. At the opening of 
the breeding season the fights between the males 
take place which determine which are to domi¬ 
nate the harems. Once settled, the other seals 
are driven off some miles and kept away by a 
system of animal regulation that is iittle short 
of marvelous. After the young are born, the 
female leaves the land and goes out to sea, not 
for three or ten or twenty miles, but for hun¬ 
dreds of miles into the high seas in search of 
food. The male, however, does not leave the 
land or its close proximity. Therefore, it is 
the female which falls a victim to the pelagic 
sealing, and the loss of the female is a double 
loss, because it means the. loss of her young, 
which must starve to death. Nothing is lost by 
killing the surplus male seals, and uponi this 
point the experts of the interested countries 
agree. But the loss of the female seals means 
the diminishment of the herd in numbers in just 
the proportion that the females are killed. 
All of the representatives were able to see this 
after a friendly and temperate discussion of the 
facts, and each country had its experts there to 
reach the facts. After the facts had been ascer¬ 
tained and agreed upon, came the question of 
solution. Some concession had to be made to 
those countries which had seal fishing industries, 
representing large capital. The concessions be¬ 
gan in the same friendly spirit that had char¬ 
acterized the proceedings of the convention all 
along. Russia and the United States agreed to 
pay over to the other two countries 30 per cent, 
of the seal catch each year and to an agreed 
sum in case no seals were killed. Russia and 
the United States also agreed not to participate 
in this bonus paid by either, consequently the 30 
per cent, paid by those two countries will be 
divided between Great Britain and Japan. The 
30 per cent, paid by Japan will be divided be- 
NATIVE CALIFORNIANS. 
The little daughter of W. N. Dirks, of Alameda, and 
pet quail. 
tween Russia, Great Britain and the United 
States, giving 10 per cent, to each. Canada has 
no seal fisheries and therefore has nothing to 
pay. 
These concessions made, the real object was 
attained in the absolute prohibition of pelagic 
sealing to the citizens of all four countries. 
Every person or vessel offending against the pro¬ 
hibition may be seized and detained by duly au¬ 
thorized officials, to be delivered to the nation 
to which they belong, which nation shall try the 
offense and impose the penalty. Further provis¬ 
ion is made for supplying the necessary evidence 
to establish the violation of the prohibition. The 
convention also prevents the use of any of the 
ports or harbors of any of the four countries 
for any purposes whatever connected with the 
operation of pelagic sealing in the waters cov¬ 
ered by the convention and prohibits the impor¬ 
tation into their territories of any seal skins of 
the American, Russian or Japanese herds taken 
by pelagic sealing. 
The convention also provides for the mainte¬ 
nance of tt guard or patrol in the waters fre¬ 
quented by the North Pacific seal herds, and for 
the adoption of appropriate legislation for the 
enforcement of the provisions of the convention 
and for the co-operation of all the parties to it 
in carrying out its purposes. Because the United 
States reserves the right to discontinue alto¬ 
gether the killing of the Pribiloff Is,and seals, 
a special arrangement was entered into whereby 
the United States makes an advance payment to 
Japan and Great Britain of $200,000 each, which 
payments are to be refunded to the United States 
out of the proceeds of the British and Japanese 
share of skins taken from the American herd. 
This provision is in the nature of a loan, and 
was necessary only because this country reserved 
the right to discontinue the killing of the Pribi¬ 
loff Islands seals. Each country reserves the 
right to control its own herd and breeding 
grounds. 
The period during which the convention is to 
remain in force is fixed at fifteen years, and 
thereafter until terminated by one year’s notice 
given by any one of the parties after the ex¬ 
piration of the fourteenth year. Secretary Nagel 
appeared especially optimistic over the conven¬ 
tion, or to lie more exact, over the fact that the 
convention was made possible after the coun¬ 
tries interested had gotten so wide apart upon 
the subject to which it relates. It shows, he 
thinks, the possibilities of agreement upon any 
subject of difference between friendly countries 
when their representatives meet in friendly in¬ 
tercourse in the proper spirit. It wipes out, at 
least as far as four countries are concerned, the 
old straight-laced technicalities of the law, and 
brings the governments of the several countries 
together upon broader lines of comity,, based 
upon reason, common sense and the general wel¬ 
fare of humanity. 
The sea otter is covered also by the conven¬ 
tion, as is also a species of whale, and in effect 
the agreement is the first of a world-wide agree¬ 
ment on the conservation of game in an inter¬ 
national sense. If an agreement in that direc¬ 
tion can be that easily and generously effected 
by leading countries with conflicting interests, 
why may not one be reached which will insure 
peace to the world by arbitration and. thereby 
ful'y realize President Taft’s great aim toward 
world peace? Raleigh Raines. 
More Utah Ducks Dying. 
Salt Lake City, Utah, July 1 .—Editor Forest 
and Stream: The serious epidemic of cocci- 
diosis, which occurred among the Utah ducks, 
geese and snipe in July, 1910, has started again 
this year. The caretaker at the new State Gun 
Club reported Friday that in viewing one quarter 
of our grounds he had seen twenty-five sick 
ducks, 100 fresh dead ones, numerous mudhens 
and many small snipe, all freshly dead. So it 
is evident that we are going to have a repetition 
of the 1910 epidemic. However, we are en¬ 
deavoring to dry our grounds thoroughly and 
will burn all the tules and grass when dead and 
dry, and disinfect as far as possible. 
The State Fish and Game Department in¬ 
forms me that at the mouth of Bear River (an¬ 
other large duck preserve) the birds are also 
dying as they did one year ago. 
We are still at a loss to know what to do to 
eradicate the disease. 
M. R. Stewart, M.D, 
