Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-12-08
TIE FUR SEAL HERD
PROF. II. W. ELLIOTT APPROVES
PRESIDENTS RECONSIDERATION.
Pronounces the idea of Branding the
Seals Idle and Imprac-
ticable.

iihtttu 10 SOHSTeSS gives Inc question OF
protection and preservation of our Alaskan
fur seal herd much attention. and urges
action by Congress to supplement the eff
forts of the executive departments To
show the desperate condition of the herd
he calls the attention of Congress to the
report of E.. w. Sims which was made to
the Department of Commerce and Labor
last August and only made public yester-
day.
A representative of The Star asked Prof
Henry w. Elliott this morning for an ex-
preston of opinion to the recommends
ton of the Presidents message and the
value of the Sims report. Mr. Elliott said:
The recommendation of the President
that Congress supplement his efforts by the
passage of an act which will enable him
to put the land and sea butchers of this
fur seal herd out of business at once is a
humane. merciful and sensible one Such
an act should have been passed ten years
ago, and would have been had it not been
for the erroneous and mistaken opposition
of Richard Olney to the plan. Judge Gresh-
ans death, in June. 1895, prevented the
Dingley seal bill from receiving the sup
port of the State Department in March,
1896 after 1t had passed the House by a
unanimous vote and under full debate. 1t
was defeated in the Senate by Secretary
Olney, who assured Senator Frye. who had
the bill in charge. that he had the fur
seal question well in hand and the passage
of the bill would greatly embarrass, if not
defeat. his negotiations.
THE outcome of Olney's work was the
abortive and erroneous finding of the
Jordan Thompson commission, which SIM
ply made a bad matter worse. 1t put the
Canadians in the saddle, and they have
been there ever since.
Now as to Mr.. Sims report which
have seen today for the first time, have
this to say: He is entirely right in saying
that the fur seal herd is in a desperate
condition and the verge of fetal eX-
termination within a year or two from
date. This is what I predicted in 1902 be-
fore the ways and means committee, to
which l exhibited a table of diminution
showing that by the close of the season of
1907 the breeding male life on the islands
would be extinct. l reinforced these figures
1904.
But Mr. Sims is utterly wrong in saying
that land killing has had no injurious eff
feet on the herd, either to decrease the
birth rate or destroy it. He ignores, with
out warrant, the testimony of a trusted
Russian agent of the old Russian-American
Company, who spent the season of 1919 on
the Prilbylov Islands. This agent, in 1920,
declared in a report to the company that
unless the close killing Of the young male
seals discontinued on land the species
itself would become extinct. The company
ignored his advice. What followed? In
1884 the herd was on the verge of total
destruction, and all killing was suspended
In 1885 by the Russians, and so suspended,
practically, until 1874, then gradually re-
sumed under better care and annually in
so, coo young male seals was annuaiy taken
up to 1861 without the least injury to the
herd or its increase
eff excessive land killing of the young
males could destroy this herd in 1S19-34.
why has it ceased to be potent factor of
harm? There was no pelagic sealing even
dreamed of In those days or even prac-
ticed until 1886 SO as to be at all significant.
Now, when you add to the injurious work
of land killing that of the pelagic butcher,
YOU have simply augmented and FASTENED
fha Of of
has been under the two fires ever since
1886, with the exception of that brief re-
spite from excessive land killing which 1
gave it through my moduS vivendi of 1891
1893. l wanted to make 1t seven years. but
natural science was prostituted at Paris in
1893, and again in 1S9G-'Y, and the butchers
on the islands were given full swing again.
Mr.. Sims has much to say of what he
saw during the short week of his experience
on the islands with regard to the Japanese
raid made then and there He does not
seem to know that these Japanese hunters
have been regularly hired and set upon
this work by Canadian and American man
ayers since 1SS2-'S3. hold in my hands
the indisputable proof of that fact. The
fact that these managers. Canadian and
American, were careless this summer is the
only reason why they were detected and
captured as they were. --.-
again Mr.. Sims maks the error OF say
ing that these seals can be branded, and
SO branded would reduce the seals to its
possession! Why, only think OF It!
OeldgiC hunter would drive ms spear ana
his skinning knife through any brand mark
that Mr.. Sims could put on fur seals hide
so thoroughly and so effectively that 1t
would disappear at once from that hide,
and as for metal tags which he wants
attached with wire to the bodies of the
seals why the seals would so work and
worry under them that either the tags
would be worn off or the seals themselves
would die from their efforts. He does not
understand the strange, nervous wildness
of the fur seal. He has seen hair seals
and sea lions put under restraint by man.
hut he never has seen and never will see
a fur seal so controlled and restrained by
man.
such official errors of statement as these
destroyed our case at Paris in 1893. They
again reappear in the Jordan-Thompson in
vestigations and conclusions of 1861, and
again we go down to defeat in the Jordan
Thompson agreement of November II, 1897.
Fortunately, the President has ignored
this branding and metal-tag nonsense which
Mr. Sims has so seriously advised. and the
President has been able to see that unless
we can get an agreement to stop pelagic
sealing 1t is only merciful and far more
humane for us to kill the female fur seals
at once, and by SO doing instantly end
this scandalous business of breeding them
for a band of alien butchers to alone in
humanely and indecently slaughter into an
indefinite future"