Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-05-27
TOXIC PRESSES WASHINGTON
FOR REVISION OF SEAL PACT
Contends Growth of Herds Has Wrought
Havoc to Japanese Fishing
Industry.
BY the Associated Press.

BY the Associated Press.
TOXIC, May 27.-Uncle Sans herds
Of fur-bearing seals in the North Pa
cific have grown so numerous under the
kindly shield of a four-power treaty
framed for their protection in 1911, and
are devouring such quantities of the fish
which Japan needs to help feed her
teeming human population, that the
Toxic government is pressing Wash
ington for revision of the international
seal convention.
So effective has the protective agree
ment been, say the japanese, that 1.-The
beaches of Lukannon," in the Aneri-
can-oWned Pribilof Islands, of which
Kipling wrote POLITICALLY in THE White
Seal" are again almost as populous as
in the, golden age before the sealers
came"
Toxic contends. therefore, that the
restriction on killing seals may be re-
Taxed without threatening the herds
with extinction and with great gain to
Japan's fishing industry.
Claim Losses of Millions.
Diplomatic communications on this
subject have been passing across the
Pacific for months. The Japanese gov
eminent, which Joined with the United
States, Russia and Great Britain in
the 1911 convention. complains that the
seals, nearly all of them American
cause loss of 100000 yen oslo, 0O0.-
000) a year to Japanese fishing in
terestS.
Under the benign protection of the
convention, says this version, the Amer
lean herds have grown in two decades
from about $4,000 to nearly 1,000. 900
voracious fish eaters that play havoc in
the North Pacific waters piled by the
fishing boats of Japan, even breaking
nets and devouring or chasing away
great quantities of herring, cuttlefish
and other delicacies of the sea that
might grace japanese tables.
The negotiations are beset by diplo-
matte perplexities, chiefly because the
United States and Soviet Russia are not
speaking officially and so cannot discuss
revision Of a treaty that theoretically
binds them both. Toxic, however, is
pursuing the subject in hope that a
three-power moduS vivendi, permitting
the killing of more seals, can be patched
up between Japan, America and Canada,
which has inherited Great Britain's
share in the seal question since she eS-
tabliShed legations in Washington and
Toxic.
Killing Of Seals Banned.
The purpose of the convention of 1911
was to avert the threatened extinction
of the North Pscific seal herds, which
during 40 years Of unrestricted hunting
had dwindled from 5000, 900 or 1000 900
to about 100000. The treaty prohibits
all pelagic sealing-that is, killing or
capturing seals at sea-in the Pacific
Ocean north of 80 degrees north lati-
tude, including the Seas of Boring,
Ohkotsk, Kamchatka and Japan.
Seals may be killed only on the
islands to which they repair each year
for the mating season, and on those
islands they are strictly under the con-
troll of the governments concerned and
are killed and skinned only by govern
ment agents.
The treaty sets minimum figures for
the American, Russian and Japanese
herds and provides that there shall be
no killing in any herd that drops
below its limit, which is 100000
for the American, 1900 for the Russian
and $500 for the japanese. When herds
are above their respective limits each
government determines the number to
be killed in any season. The convention
further provides system of sharing all
around, designed to equalize the sacri-
fees necessary to the protecting agree
ment
Canada Party to Convention.
Great Britain-now Canada-is a
party to the convention, although DOS
sessing no seal herds, because much of
the sealing in the unrestricted days was
done by boats out Of Canadian ports,
manned chiefly by Scots.
Reports sent to the Bureau Of Fish
cries in Toxic by its seal experts in the
north state that all three herds are