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Updated: May 1, 2025
They had exchanged five sea-otter furs, worth about a hundred dollars apiece, and a considerable number of fur-seal, land-otter, marten, beaver, and other furs and skins, some $800 worth, for a new canoe valued at eighty dollars, some flour, tobacco, blankets, and a few barrels of molasses for the manufacture of whiskey.
They were of the kind known here as the hair-seal, the skin of which is of little value. It is still very abundant; but the fur-seal, from the indiscriminate slaughter of old and young for many years back has become scarce, and is now confined to a few favourite localities rookeries as they are called, a name also applied at the Falklands to any great breeding place of penguins or other seafowl.
This convention is a conservation measure of very great importance, and if it is carried out in the spirit of reciprocal concession and advantage upon which it is based, there is every reason to believe that not only will it result in preserving the fur-seal herds of the north Pacific Ocean and restoring them to their former value for the purposes of commerce, but also that it will afford a permanently satisfactory settlement of a question the only other solution of which seemed to be the total destruction of the fur seals.
The United States possessed there a great and flourishing fur-seal industry, which was managed with care and was a source of large revenue to our government. The killing of the seals under the direction of those who had charge of the matter was done with the utmost care and discrimination on the Pribyloff Islands, to which these animals resorted in great numbers during the summer.
New federal fish hatcheries should be established. The administration of the Alaskan fur-seal service should be vested in the Bureau of Fisheries. This Nation's foreign policy is based on the theory that right must be done between nations precisely as between individuals, and in our actions for the last ten years we have in this matter proven our faith by our deeds.
The Russian fur-seal islands having also suffered to a considerable extent from similar marauders, a British commission visited the Russian islands and took testimony of the Russian commandant in a manner grossly unfair.
After much correspondence and delays, for which this Government was not responsible, an agreement was reached and signed on the 15th of June, by which Great Britain undertook from that date and until May 1, 1892, to prohibit the killing by her subjects of seals in the Bering Sea, and the Government of the United States during the same period to enforce its existing prohibition against pelagic sealing and to limit the catch by the fur-seal company upon the islands to 7,500 skins.
Cathartes jota. Closely allied to the "turkey-buzzard" of the United States. Otaria Falklandica. There are several distinct species of "otary," or "fur-seal"; those of the Falkland Islands and Tierra del Fuego being different from the fur-seals of northern latitudes.
In the seas round New Zealand were found the whale and the fur-seal. The Maoris might be cannibals, but they were eager to trade. In their forests grew trees capable of supplying first-class masts and spars. Strange weapons, ornaments, and cloaks, were offered by the savages, as well as food and the dressed fibre of the native flax.
The justification of establishing this close season depends, under the terms of the convention, upon how far, if at all, it is necessary for protecting and preserving the American fur-seal herd and for increasing its number. This is a question requiring examination of the present condition of the herd and the treatment which it needs in the light of actual experience and scientific investigation.
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