Pelagic sealers are even today taking a few Pribilof seals. 
Japanese fishermen working off northern Honshu and Hokkaido during World 
war IJ and since have probably taken 2 to 3 thousand seals annually, 
(fig. 14) of which about one-third were estimated to be migrants from the 
Pribilofs (International Fur Seal Investigation, 1954, MS). Commercial 
sealing was banned during the Allied occupation, 1945-52, and has subse- 
quently been declared illegal by the Japanese government. Thus no authentic 
records of the take exist. Many seal skins are in evidence as clothing 
in the coastal Japanese villages. In past years, under terms of the Treaty 
of 1911, Indians of the northwest coast of America annually took a few 
Imndred migrating seals (fig. 15). Since 1940, coastal sealing activi- 
ties have virtually disappeared. 
Pelagic sealing today has no noticeable effect on the Pribilof 
herd. However, if it were to become legalized in certain parts of the 
North Pacific Ocean, and if 100 or more harpoon boats comparable to those 
now used by the Japanese for shark, porpoise, and seal hunting were to 
participate in pelagic sealing, the effect on the Pribilof seal herd could 
be serious within a few years. 

Figure 15. Pelagic sealing by aborigines off Southeast 
Alaska in 1950. A Tlingit Indian pulls in a speared and exhausted 
fur seal. Aboriginal sealing is a dying art; less than 1,000 
animals have been taken on the American coast in the past decade. 
Aboriginal sealing under treaty rights has little effect on the 
Pribilof herd (KWK 50 465). 
-k6- 
