the former there were scattered agreements, the latter was subject to a multi-decade
regime that regulated the hunt for Northern fur seals (Callorhinus ursinus).
While the longest regime could be found in the North Pacific, it was the North
Atlantic which yielded the first actual regime to regulate sealing: the Jan Mayen
Fisheries Treaty was concluded between Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, the
United Kingdom and Russia in 1875 and relates to the sealing activities at Jan
Mayen, a small island in the Greenland Sea in the North Atlantic. At the time of the
treaty’s conclusion, it was unclear who had sovereignty over the island since, on the
one hand, Dutch whalers maintained a base there while Norway claimed to have
discovered it first. The issue was only resolved in 1921 when Norway opened a
permanent meteorological station at Jan Mayen and claimed sovereignty in 1926,
confirmed by the League of Nations in 1929. Be that as it may, already in the 1850s it
became clear that the abundant harp seal (Pagophilus groenlandicus) herds were
drastically overhunted with numbers up to 400,000 per year. In order to continue
hunting the seals, the Jan Mayen Treaty did not provide effective protection as such,
but rather provided a means for the countries involved to streamline their respective
national legislation pertaining to sealing. It was therefore more of a common-day
framework convention that each party implemented according to its own means. The
main feature of this little-known treaty was that it established a clearly defined
hunting area and hunting seasons. In how far these were efforts were successful
and effectively protected the abundant seals cannot be ascertained, but the Jan
Mayen treaty is important in so far as it constituted the first international marine
mammal-related agreement that regulated hunting activities.
While the Jan Mayen Treaty in the North Atlantic was the first of its kind, the
North Pacific, and in particular the seal hunts on and surrounding the Aleutian
Pribilof Islands, were subject to long-standing regulation that resulted in a regulatory
regime that would last for almost 100 years. The Pribilof Islands are two islands, St
George and St Paul, which now belong to Alaska (United States), but which were
discovered in the late 1780s by the Russian commander Gerasim Gavrilovich
Pribilof. No native population could be found on these two islands at that time.
The discovery of the islands proved to be a gold mine for the Russian fur traders,
who had expanded their grounds of operation in the North Pacific in their search for
sea otters and fur seals. Given that the Pribilof Islands were uninhabited, they
constituted the main two breeding grounds for the Northern fur seal, providing
Russian fur traders with a seemingly unlimited number of furs. Word spread quickly
and soon also American, Japanese and British (Canadian) schooners were heavily
engaged in the hunts for fur seals, causing an unregulated decimation of the abundant
seal herds. Within around 10 years after the discovery of the Pribilofs, the Northern
fur seal populations were close to collapse.
To better control the fur seal exploitation at the Pribilof Islands, in 1799 the
Russian-American Company, a Russian-led company for the expansion of Russian
hegemony in America was given control, thus de facto constituting a first regulatory
effort. This effort, however, proved to be rather unsuccessful and the decimation of
the seal herds continued unabated, even leading to around 100,000 furs having to be
disposed of due to an overabundance on the international markets. This did not
6.2 The Nineteenth Century
127
regime that regulated the hunt for Northern fur seals (Callorhinus ursinus).
While the longest regime could be found in the North Pacific, it was the North
Atlantic which yielded the first actual regime to regulate sealing: the Jan Mayen
Fisheries Treaty was concluded between Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, the
United Kingdom and Russia in 1875 and relates to the sealing activities at Jan
Mayen, a small island in the Greenland Sea in the North Atlantic. At the time of the
treaty’s conclusion, it was unclear who had sovereignty over the island since, on the
one hand, Dutch whalers maintained a base there while Norway claimed to have
discovered it first. The issue was only resolved in 1921 when Norway opened a
permanent meteorological station at Jan Mayen and claimed sovereignty in 1926,
confirmed by the League of Nations in 1929. Be that as it may, already in the 1850s it
became clear that the abundant harp seal (Pagophilus groenlandicus) herds were
drastically overhunted with numbers up to 400,000 per year. In order to continue
hunting the seals, the Jan Mayen Treaty did not provide effective protection as such,
but rather provided a means for the countries involved to streamline their respective
national legislation pertaining to sealing. It was therefore more of a common-day
framework convention that each party implemented according to its own means. The
main feature of this little-known treaty was that it established a clearly defined
hunting area and hunting seasons. In how far these were efforts were successful
and effectively protected the abundant seals cannot be ascertained, but the Jan
Mayen treaty is important in so far as it constituted the first international marine
mammal-related agreement that regulated hunting activities.
While the Jan Mayen Treaty in the North Atlantic was the first of its kind, the
North Pacific, and in particular the seal hunts on and surrounding the Aleutian
Pribilof Islands, were subject to long-standing regulation that resulted in a regulatory
regime that would last for almost 100 years. The Pribilof Islands are two islands, St
George and St Paul, which now belong to Alaska (United States), but which were
discovered in the late 1780s by the Russian commander Gerasim Gavrilovich
Pribilof. No native population could be found on these two islands at that time.
The discovery of the islands proved to be a gold mine for the Russian fur traders,
who had expanded their grounds of operation in the North Pacific in their search for
sea otters and fur seals. Given that the Pribilof Islands were uninhabited, they
constituted the main two breeding grounds for the Northern fur seal, providing
Russian fur traders with a seemingly unlimited number of furs. Word spread quickly
and soon also American, Japanese and British (Canadian) schooners were heavily
engaged in the hunts for fur seals, causing an unregulated decimation of the abundant
seal herds. Within around 10 years after the discovery of the Pribilofs, the Northern
fur seal populations were close to collapse.
To better control the fur seal exploitation at the Pribilof Islands, in 1799 the
Russian-American Company, a Russian-led company for the expansion of Russian
hegemony in America was given control, thus de facto constituting a first regulatory
effort. This effort, however, proved to be rather unsuccessful and the decimation of
the seal herds continued unabated, even leading to around 100,000 furs having to be
disposed of due to an overabundance on the international markets. This did not
6.2 The Nineteenth Century
127