Show FUR SEALS DOOMED OMED government MAY DECIDE TO SLAUGHTER ENTIRE HERD tired of the uneven fight against the canad an poachers whose r depredations are be yond control it Is practically certain that before long the united states government will decide to slaughter the e entire herd thus wiping out the species min plemely and finally so far as the wa ot of the north pacific are con berned when we acquired alaska from russia we obtained exclusive property tights rights so it was understood over the eastern halt of behring sea which up to that time bad had been regarded as N 1 gett ng ready to brand a seal a maritime lake belonging to the czar thib this halt half included the ov Is lands which by the way were not discovered until a little over a cen tury ago owing mainly to the circum stances that they are shrouded in al most perpetual tog fog with the islands of course went the fur seals and we might have succeeded in protecting and preserving the latter tor for an in definite period if only it had been their habit to spend all of their lives in the near neighborhood of the kriby lov group unfortunately however the seals merely visit the ov islands in the summer time for breeding p pur ur poses leaving them in november a and nd returning in june the rest of the year they spend in a migratory v voy oy age to more southern waters the herd finding its way in the month of feb auary to a latitude some distance south of san an francisco and thereupon turning northward again having studied this habit of theirs it has been an easy matter for the masters of vessels specially equipped tor for this sort ol 01 fishery to follow along with the herd throughout its entire migra tion and to kill off the animals at leisure sometimes the seals under such circumstances are speared while ele eving on the water but usually they are shot when shot unless un lessin in scantly killed they dive and as a re suit nine out of ten of 0 those fatally injured are lost accordingly it Is estimated that the capture of seals by this means involved the de of about it if ex posed to attack in no other way the herd could not survine such de cimina tion tor for an indefinite period but to complete the deadly work the seal hunters pursued the practice of coast ing in the vicinity of the island and destroying the females as they ven yen aured out to sea in pursuit of fish for food when an animal Is assailed on it its S breeding it Is surely doomed in as much as nature natures s opportunity of multiplying the species is cut off thus it has been with the fur seals every female killed in the vicinity of the islands left one or more pups on shore to starve to death and in this manner year after year tens of thou sands of the young perished miser ably no wonder then that within the last 30 years the rookeries of the ov group have bee been n rendered almost barren of the innab stants the herd being reduced in numbers during that period from about 5 to the pre pres ent estimate against such depredations by our own people effective measures might have been adopted but our govern ment has been almost helpless to deal with the canadian poachers all ef forts torts to secure the cooperation of great britain being vain in as much as all of the sealskins are dyed and otherwise prepared for market in england where for many years the industry has given profitable employ ment to upward of 20 persons the attitude of our friends across the sea in this matter has been to say the least of it unintelligent but even yet it Is unchanged the main cause of it being that the british authorities were mere reluctant on technical grounds to admit that our rights in behring sea extended beyond the customary three mf mile le limit now it happens that the female seals commonly swim from 20 to 30 miles away from the is lands in pursuit of fish and thus the canadian poachers are easily able to destroy them |