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Caribbean Monk Seal Gone for Good

Jessica Marshall, Discovery News

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Just a Memory

June 9, 2008 -- The Caribbean monk seal is officially extinct.

Last seen in 1952 on a small group of reef islands between Jamaica and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, the seal -- covered in brown fur tinged with gray, and with a yellow belly -- was easy prey for European settlers in the 1600s and 1700s, who killed it for meat, oil, and to seal the bottoms of boats.

The crew of Columbus' second voyage was the first to kill the seals. "It's one of the first mammals that Columbus saw when he discovered this region, and it's the first one to go extinct," said Kyle Baker of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association's Fisheries Service in Saint Petersburg, Fla.

"By the mid 1800s, they were very rare," Baker said.

The seal was the only subtropical seal native to the Caribbean.

Several seal sightings were reported in the Caribbean between 1952 and the present, but until the 80s and 90s -- when people began carrying cameras and cell phones -- it was difficult to verify whether those sightings really were Caribbean monk seals.

"Reviewing the data, we've identified most of these as hooded seals, which are Arctic species coming down from the northeast," Baker said. Other sightings have turned out to be bearded seals and harbor seals, but none have been Caribbean monk seals.

With better information, "we decided it was time to do the status review [under the Endangered Species Act] and to come to the conclusion, unfortunately, that the species is now gone," Baker said.

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