PRIBILOF ISLANDS

also called Fur Seal Islands, islands of Alaska, U.S., including St. Paul (35 square miles [91 square km]), St. George (27 square miles), and two islets lying in the Bering Sea, about 300 miles (500 km) west of the mainland and 180 miles north of the Aleutian Islands. The islands were first visited in 1786 by Gavril Pribylov, a Russian sea captain, who discovered their fur seal rookeries. Control of the islands was transferred from Russia to the United States with the purchase of Alaska (1867). Northern fur seals that visit the Pribilofs from April to November have been the focus of an international controversy for many years. The seals use the islands as their breeding ground; the older and stronger bulls gather harems, while the younger "bachelors" congregate separately. If the bachelors are hunted when they are ashore, the herd may be conserved; sealing at sea (pelagic sealing) permits no selectivity, and, moreover, many of the animals killed are lost. In 1870 sealing rights were leased to the Alaska Commercial Company. During the 1880s vessels of several nations engaged in pelagic sealing, which caused the islands' herds to become depleted. In 1886 U.S. vessels began seizing Canadian sealers off the Pribilofs. A tribunal ruled against the United States in 1893. After 1910 the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries had direct supervision of the sealing. In 1911 the United States, Great Britain (for Canada), Japan, and Russia signed the North Pacific Sealing Convention, abolishing pelagic sealing north of latitude 30 N and providing that each nation should share in the skins collected on the Pribilofs. The treaty was ended by Japan's withdrawal in 1941, on its contention that the seals were despoiling Japanese fisheries. In 1957 an interim convention on conservation signed by the United States, Japan, Canada, and the U.S.S.R. created the North Pacific Fur Seal Commission. The herd increased from an estimated 125,000 in 1911 to about 1,500,000 by the second half of the 20th century. About 60,000 skins are harvested yearly. The indigenous population of the Pribilof Islands is made up of Aleuts, who are closely related to the Eskimo. Formerly treated as wards by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Aleuts were granted substantial civil rights by the U.S. Congress in 1966. Pop. (1990) 901.