Partly-printed DS as president, one page, 8 x 10, Executive Mansion letterhead, April 9, 1894. President Cleveland directs the Secretary of State to cause the Seal of the United States to be affixed to “my proclamation of the Act of Congress approved the 6th instant, to give effect to the award rendered by the Tribunal of Arbitration at Paris under the treaty between the U. S. & Great Britain of Feby 29, 1892.” Signed neatly at the conclusion by Grover Cleveland. In fine condition.
This document relates to Cleveland’s signing of Proclamation 364: Prohibiting the Hunting of Fur Seals on April 6, 1894, an act designed to drastically limit the hunting of fur seals by both the United States and Great Britain in and around the Bering Sea. While the U.S. sought to employ a more sustainable seal-harvesting method that was akin to the Russians before them, seal vessels from Great Britain and Ireland opposed and/or ignored these measures, which resulted in the United States Revenue Cutter Service, today known as the United States Coast Guard, capturing several Canadian sealer vessels throughout the conflict. This led to The Bering Sea Arbitration of 1893 and, for a little while, a potential war between the United States and Great Britain was in the balance.
The North Pacific Fur Seal Convention of 1911 did much to curtail the seal industry. Signed on July 7, 1911, the treaty was designed to manage the commercial harvest of fur-bearing mammals (such as Northern fur seals and sea otters) in the Pribilof Islands of the Bering Sea. The treaty, signed by the United States, Great Britain (also representing Canada), Japan, and Russia, outlawed open-water seal hunting and acknowledged the United States' jurisdiction in managing the on-shore hunting of seals for commercial purposes. It was the first international treaty to address wildlife preservation issues.
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