Caribbean Monk Seal 
By: Nate

The Caribbean Monk Seal was discovered by Christopher Columbus on the coast of Santo Domingo in 1494. Columbus killed the seals for food! Since then people killed the seals for their oil and to keep the seals from eating all the fish.

The Caribbean  monk seal lived in the Caribbean Sea. It also lived in the Gulf of Mexico.

Not much information exists on what it ate, but it probably ate fish and mollusks.

Babies were born in December with a coat of black fur.

The main enemies of the Caribbean monk seal was sharks and man.

There have been no sightings of the Caribbean monk seal since 1952. It was formally declared extinct in 1996.

Page Citations

Images

Images of sailing ship, map of Gulf of Mexico, and the shark from "Microsoft Office Design Gallery Live" <http://dgl.microsoft.com/?CAG=1> Images free for non-profit and personal use. (December-March, 2003). 

Image of Caribbean monk seal from "ArtToday.com" <http://members.clipart.com/en/index> (2003).

Monachus. "Caribbean Monk Seal." <http://www.monachus.org/profiles/cariseal.htm> (1999).

Peter's Homepage. "Caribbean Monk Seal." <http://home.conceptsfa.nl/~pmaas/caribbeanmonkseal.htm> (December, 2001).

Seal Conservation Society. "Caribbean Monk Seal." <http://www.pinnipeds.org/species/caribmnk.htm> (April, 2003).

Davis, William B. and David J. Schmidly. The Mammals of Texas Online Edition. "Caribbean Monk Seal." <http://www.nsrl.ttu.edu/tmot1/monatrop.htm> (April, 2003).

Mignucci-Giani, Antonio A. and Peter Haddow. The Monachus Guardian. "Caribbean Monk Seals or Hooded Seals?" <http://www.monachus.org/mguard08/08newcar.htm> (November, 2001).