The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1889-10-30
The Behring Sea Bone.

The agent of the United States treas
ury in charge of the seal islands in
Behring Sea, Charles j. Golf, has Just
returned from Alaska. His remarks on
the seal fisheries are interesting. He
says:
Unless effective measures are not at
once taken by the government to stop il
legal sealing operations in Behring sea, the
seals will be totally extinct within five or
six years. | do not think that more than
fifty thousand seals can be taken on the
seal islands next year The Alaska COM
mercial company had difficulty in getting
their one hundred thousand sealskins this
summer and were obliged to kill many in
ferior animals. There were thirty illegal
sealing vessels, British and American, in
Behring Sea this year, and they took forty
thousand sealskins to Victoria. They kill
six seals in the water where they get the
carcass of one, so they have killed over two
hundred thousand illegally this year
Mr.. Colts word can of course be re-
lied upon, and the fact must be accepted
that seals are becoming fewer very
rapidly. This well understood, the
natural inquiry is, What are we going
to do about it? If the seals were pri-
vate property, the owner would take
the very best care of them, to perpetu-
ate and increase the revenue they yield.
So it would be if any single government
had jurisdiction in this matter of the
sort would be appointed to take special
pains in limiting the number of seals to
be killed each year and in encouraging
propagation. The United States gov
eminent has assumed this position and
during the past season has attempted to
drive out all "poachers " from the
eastern half of the sea. 1t has failed
signally in its efforts. 1t has failed in
the first place, because of inadequate
measures. A single cutter-the Rush
has had the responsibility of keeping
that great sea free of these "poachers. "
When "poacher" was captured, a
promise was extorted that he would
obey the American seaman placed on
board in command. The shippers had
a livelier appreciation of the value of
the skins they had taken than they did
of their word of honor, and instead of
proceeding to Sitka, per orders, they,
almost without exception, took a bee
line for Victoria, while the American
seaman Gin command" smoked his
nine and thoupht of hOme
Another reason why the govern
ment did not succeed in the attempt at
controlling waters which it claimed to
have jurisdiction over was that it either
knew it had taken an untenable posi-
ton, or that it did not know much
about it anyway. Certain it is that the
present administration has not shown
any positive conviction that its position
is right. The claim of the state depart.
ment is that it is simply enforcing q
law of congress. Yet the senate was sc
uncertain about the claim that the
United States has exclusive jurisdic.
ton over the eastern half of Behrine
Sea that when the house offered an
amendment to the senate bill declaring
that section 1856 of the revised statutes
includes and applies to all the waters OF
Behring Sea in Alaska embraced within
the boundary lines mentioned and de-
scribed in the treaty with Russia in
1867, it rejected the amendment and
adopted in its place a clause declaring
that section 1856 includes and apple;
to all the dominiOnS of the United
States in the waters of Behring Sea
If the senate really believed we have q
color of right to the ,CaterS of the east
ern half of the sea, would it have re-
jected the amendment? Does " do
minions" mean waters outside the
three-mile limit?
The fact is, that, in assuming exclu
sive jurisdiction over a portion of the
Behring Sea, we are wholly wrong. In
ternational law gives exclusive juris
diction for only three miles from the