The record-union., 1897-10-17
The SEAL CONTROVERSY.
WHAT PROFESSOR JORDAN
HAS TO SAY.
That the United States is Respon-
sibIe for One-Third of the
Seal Destruction.

MINNEAPOLIS, Oct 16.-Dr. David
Starr Jordan, en- route to the interna-
tional sealing conference, corrects an
error into which ex-Minister Phelps
and others seem to have fallen when
they commended a thirty-mile closed
zone for sealing around islands belong
ing to the United States. He says a
sixty-nnile zone is already in effect.
"As a matter of fact, the strictest
regulations governing the American
herd have been of no avail. The natur-
/ al increase of the breeding herd is about
Z per cent. Since 1885 the American
herd has fallen from 100000 breeding
females to 130O0 the Russian herd
from 100000 to about $4,000; the Kur-
lie herd from about 10000 to 200, and
that part of the island belonging to
Japan numbers three families now.
as against $4,000 formerly. The ratio
of decline has been in all cases the
same-the indiscriminat killing of fe-
males. For this great international
crime two nations are solely response
bic. They are Great Britain and the
United States.
Zone great obstacle to the success of
negotiations in the past is the fact that
we have never come to any conference
with clean hands. American hands
have destroyed one-third Of our own
herd. which once had a cash value of
so, 100000, and more than half the
slaughter of other herds has been due
to American enterprise. We have al
lowed our pirates TO destroy the seal
3 L.
just as we allow squatters to burn off
our forests to improve the feed for
their sheep.
IF nations wer as honest and just
in their dealings as private citizens are
forced TO be, the whole seal controversy
could be settled in a day. And it must
be settled
BUFFALO On. ", Oct. 16.-A spe-
cial to the Express from Ottawa,
Ont, says:
The Canadian authorities have for
some time been preparing for a con-
ference of seal experts at Washington,
Notwithstanding the success of their
protest to enter into negotiations with
Russia and Japan as parties thereto.
! Commissioner MacCun, who, with
! Professor Thompson. the British ex-
pert, spent the last two seasons on the
Pr1bylof Islands, is preparing a mass
of evidence on seal life It is expected
here with confidence that the Canadian
contention is easily supportable by this
evidence. There is claimed to have
been abundant proof collected on the
I rookeries of St. Paul and st. George
that pelagic sealers are not dependent
for their catch upon the nursing fe-
males, which venture beyond the sixty
mile zone in search of food for their
young, and still more important, if true.
/ is the report that experts have ascer-
tanned other causes than starvation to
account for the heavy mortality among
the seal pups on the islands.
It is not generally known that there
We're reasons other than those advanced
in the diplomatic note of the Foreign
Office for Britain's refusal to entertain
the proposal of a conference including
Russia and Japan. But the fact is. that
having once admitted the principle of
an interest in the question by those ma
tions. Canada could not back out of a
general review Of the entire methods of
peIagic sealing. apart from the necessa-
ry revision under the Paris award. the
fact being that the branding has quite
deposed the story that Behring Sea and
Asiatic seal herds are extinct. seals
t branded on the Pribyloffs having been
taken at sea off the Asiatie coast