Exploitation of Fur Seals

by Honey Mendoze

Fur Seals live in both Northern and Southern latitudes. Maleseals are usually Dark Brown with white around the neck and headarea they can measure up to nine feet tall. The female are halfthe lenght of a male seal and are usually silver-grayish,but theolder seals are usually Dark Brown.

During the first 1990's, Alaskans protested the alarming dropof the Fur Seal population in the Pribilof Island areas.

The butchering of a fur seal on the Pribilof Islands
(scan of a photo from the archives of the
Anchorage Museum of History and Art, B85.28.76)

Some Japanese sealers slipped within the 60-mile zone to poachSeals on the breeding grounds of the Pribilof Islands. It wasvery hard for the Revenue cutters to prevent seal poaching. Onlyone ship was assigned to patrol the islands when the cutter wascaught in fog or bad weather on one side of the Pribilof Islandsthe pochers could go to the other side of the island unseen.

In 1911 the government of the U.S.A. and Russia , whose Fur Sealrookies in the Chuckchi Sea were also suffering from over-hunting,negotiated a treaty with Japan and Canada to end Fur Seal huntingaltogether.

Beach coloby of fur seals on the Pribilof Islands
(scanned photo from the archives
of the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, B85.25.83)