Caribbean Monk Seal

Sharks and humans were the only enemies of the Caribbean monk seal

The Italian navigator Christopher Columbus discovered the Caribbean monk seal—the first mammal of the New World—in 1494 during his second voyage to the Americas, on the coast of Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. He called the animal sea wolf. It is said that Columbus ordered his crew to kill several sea wolves for food. This marked the beginning of commercial hunting of the seals, which continued for several centuries.

With the colonization of the Americas by Europeans, the Caribbean monk seal was hunted between 1700 and 1900 mainly because of its thick layer of fat (blubber). The blubber was processed into oil, for example cooking oil. The seals’ skins were also used to make clothing, straps and bags. Finally, the monk seal was also hunted by the fishing industry as a competitor for fish, which caused the population to decline even further. According to the World Conservation Union IUCN, this ultimately led to the extinction of the species in 1952.

At around the same time as the Caribbean monk seal, another marine mammal was exterminated for almost the same reasons: the Japanese sea lion. The last confirmed sighting was in 1951.

Before Columbus discovered the Caribbean monk seal, there were about 233,000 to 338,000 monk seals in the Caribbean. Loren McClenachan and Andrew B. Cooper calculated this in a 2008 study. The last 60 years before the monk seal’s extinction in particular are said to be well documented, as scientists began describing the species in the 1880s. By that time, however, the Caribbean monk seal was already very rare.

Caribbean monk seal – fact sheet

alternative names	West Indian monk seal, West Indian seal, Sea wolf
scientific names	Neomonachus tropicalis, Monachus tropicalis, Phoca tropicalis
original range	Caribbean
time of extinction	1952 at the earliest
causes of extinction	hunting
IUCN status	extinct

Caribbean monk seal: Last sighted in 1952

The last reliable sighting of the seals dates from 1952. A seal colony was discovered on Serranilla Bank, a group of small coral islands between Jamaica and Honduras. An aerial search expedition in 1973 then produced no sightings of Caribbean monk seals. Another search in 1980 was also unsuccessful.

In 2008, the Caribbean monk seal was officially declared extinct by the US government, as reported in an article by NBC News. The US weather and oceanography agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, had searched for the Caribbean monk seal for five years—without success.

With the disappearance of the Caribbean monk seal, the nasal mite Caribbean monk seal nasal mite, which lived in the seal’s respiratory tract, also became extinct. A similar fate befell the passenger pigeon mite, which became extinct together with the passenger pigeon in 1914.

Does the Caribbean monk seal still exist after all?

There were some unconfirmed sightings by fishermen and divers who even claimed to have seen Caribbean monk seals in the 1990s. Experts assume, however, that these were cases of mistaken identity involving hooded seals (Cystophora cristata), which also occasionally travel through the Caribbean.

In the episode Sea Monsters (season 3, episode 10) of the series Monster Quest, which aired on the History Channel in April 2009, experts propose the theory that an unidentified “sea monster” could be the extinct Caribbean monk seal. However, there is no evidence for this hypothesis. Opposing views say it is merely a West Indian manatee (Trichechus manatus), which is common in this area.

Caribbean monk seals spent most of their time in the water

Caribbean monk seals spent most of their time in the water; the animals came ashore only to give birth to their young and to seek shelter. Little is known about their reproductive behavior. Males could grow to almost two and a half meters in length and reach a weight of 200 kilograms. The females were somewhat smaller. The animals were gray-brown on the back, while the underside and muzzle were a pale yellow.

Today, only two monk seal species remain: the Hawaiian monk seal (Neomonachus schauinslandi) and the Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus). Both are threatened with extinction.

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