U.S. and Britain Sign Treaty on Hunting Seals in Bering Sea (1892)
On February 29, 1892, the United States and Britain signed a treaty to arbitrate their disputes on hunting seals in the Bering Sea, also known as the Treaty of Arbitration of 1892. The dispute between the U.S., Britain, and Canada on the use of the Bering Sea for hunting seals is often referred to as the Bering Sea Dispute.
In 1867, the U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. claimed that it also controlled the Bering Sea for all seal hunting off the coast of Alaska. The British and Canadian governments vehemently opposed the U.S.’s position that it controlled all seal hunting on the Bering Sea.
In the 1880s, the Alaska Commercial Company, a U.S. fishing business that had a monopoly for fishing seals for their furs, found Canadian hunters were killing seals in the open-waters of the Bering Sea near the Pribilof Islands. The Alaska Commercial Company complained to the U.S. government about these Canadian hunters. The U.S. government took action and seized certain Canadian vessels engaged in seal hunting on the Bering Sea and filed suit for monetary damages in Alaskan courts.
Canada and Britain quickly disputed the U.S.’s right to control all seal hunting on the Bering Sea. After many years of tensions between the countries on seal hunting in the Bering Sea, Britain and the U.S. finally agreed to arbitrate their disputes before an international arbitration panel in Paris, France.
On this day, February 29, 1892, the U.S. and Great Britain agreed to temporarily refrain from seal hunting on the Bering Sea and solve their seal hunting disputes before a 7-member international arbitration panel.
The panel issued its decision the following year and held that the U.S. did not control the entire Bering Sea for purposes of seal hunting. The panel awarded the Canadian owners of the seized ships $473,000 in damages. However, the panel failed to address many of the other issues between the countries on seal hunting in the Bering Sea.
In 1911, the United States, Great Britain, Russia, and Japan signed the North Pacific Fur Seal Convention which outlawed open-water seal hunting and placed limits on how many seals could be hunted on the Bering Sea. But the treaty granted the U.S. jurisdiction for on-shore commercial hunting of seals. It was the first international treaty on environmental and wildlife preservation.