Caribbean monk seal

The Caribbean monk seal, West Indian seal or sea wolf (Neomonachus tropicalis) was a species of seal native to the Caribbean and is now believed to be extinct. The Caribbean monk seals' main predators were sharks and humans.[2] Overhunting of the seals for oil and overfishing of their food sources are the established reasons for the seals' extinction.[2] The last confirmed sighting of the Caribbean Monk Seal was in 1952 at Serranilla Bank, between Jamaica and Nicaragua.[3] In 2008, the species was officially declared extinct by the United States after an exhaustive search for the seals that lasted for about five years. This analysis was conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Marine Fisheries Service.[4] Caribbean monk seals were closely related to the Hawaiian monk seals, which live around the Hawaiian Islands and are now endangered, and Mediterranean monk seals, another endangered species.[5][6]

Caribbean monk seal
Specimen in the New York Aquarium, ca. 1910

Extinct  (1952)  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Clade: Pinnipediformes
Clade: Pinnipedia
Family: Phocidae
Genus: Neomonachus
Species:
†N. tropicalis
Binomial name
†Neomonachus tropicalis
(Gray, 1850)
Synonyms

Monachus tropicalis (Gray, 1850)[1]
Phoca tropicalis Gray, 1850[1]

Description
Drawing of Neomonachus tropicalis

Caribbean monk seals had a relatively large, long, robust body, could grow to nearly 2.4 metres (8 ft) in length and weighed 170 to 270 kilograms (375 to 600 lb). Males were probably slightly larger than females, which is similar to Mediterranean monk seals. Like other monk seals, this species had a distinctive head and face. The head was rounded with an extended broad muzzle. The face had relatively large wide-spaced eyes, upward opening nostrils, and fairly big whisker pads with long light-colored and smooth whiskers. When compared to the body, the animal's foreflippers were relatively short with little claws and the hindflippers were slender. Their coloration was brownish and/or grayish, with the underside lighter than the dorsal area. Adults were darker than the more paler and yellowish younger seals. Caribbean monk seals were also known to have algae growing on their pelage, giving them a slightly greenish appearance, which is similar to Hawaiian monk seals.[7]

Behavior and ecology

Historical records suggest that this species may have "hauled out" at resting areas on land in large social groups, typically 20-40 animals, but sometimes up to 100 individuals, throughout its range.[8] The groups may have been organised based on age and life stage differences. Their diet most likely consisted of fish and crustaceans.

Like other true seals, the Caribbean monk seal was sluggish on land. Its lack of fear of humans and an unaggressive and curious nature was taken advantage of by human hunters.

Reproduction and longevity
Two young individuals in New York Aquarium, 1910

Caribbean monk seals had a long pupping season, which is typical for pinnipeds living in subtropical and tropical habitats. In Mexico, breeding season peaked in early December. Like other monk seals, this species had four retractable nipples for suckling their young. Newborn pups were probably about 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) in length and weighed 16 to 18 kilograms (35 to 40 lb) and reportedly had a sleek, black lanugo coat when born.[8] It is believed this animal's average lifespan was approximately twenty years.

Habitat

Caribbean monk seals were found in warm temperate, subtropical and tropical waters of the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and the western Atlantic Ocean. They probably preferred to haul out at low sandy beaches above high tide on isolated and secluded atolls and islands, but occasionally would visit the mainland coasts and deeper waters offshore. This species may have fed in shallow lagoons and reefs.[7]

Relationship with humans
Depiction by Henry W. Elliott from 1884

The first historical mention of the Caribbean monk seal is recorded in the account of the second voyage of Christopher Columbus. In August 1494 a ship laid anchor off the mostly barren island of Alta Velo, south of Hispaniola, the party of men went and killed eight seals that were resting on the beach.[9] The second recorded interaction with Caribbean monk seals was Juan Ponce de León’s discovery of the Dry Tortugas Islands. On June 21, 1513 Ponce de León discovered the islands, he ordered a foraging party to go ashore, where the men killed fourteen of the docile seals.[10] There are several more records throughout the colonial period of seals being discovered and hunted at Guadelupe, the Alacrane Islands, the Bahamas, the Pedro Cays, and Cuba.[2] As early as 1688 sugar plantation owners sent out hunting parties to kill hundreds of seals every night in order to obtain oil to lubricate the plantation machinery.[11] A 1707 account describes fisherman slaughtering seals by the hundreds for oil to fuel their lamps.[2] By 1850 so many seals had been killed that there were no longer sufficient numbers for them to be commercially hunted.[11]

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, scientific expeditions to the Caribbean encountered the Caribbean monk seal. In December 1886 the first recorded scientific expedition to research seals, led by H. A. Ward and Professor F. Ferrari Perez as part of the Mexican Geographical and Exploring Survey, ventured to a small collection of reefs and a small cay known as the Triangles (20.95° N 92.23° W) in search of monk seals.[12] Although the research expedition was in the area for only four days, forty-two specimens were killed and taken away; the two leaders of the expedition shared them.[12] Two specimens from this encounter survive intact at the British Museum of Natural History and the Cambridge Zoological Museum respectively.[2] The expedition also captured a newly born seal pup that died in captivity a week later.[12]

The first Caribbean monk seal to live in captivity for an extended period was a female seal that lived in The New York Aquarium.[13] The seal was captured in 1897 and died in 1903, living in captivity for a total of five and a half years.[13] In 1909 The New York Aquarium acquired four Caribbean monk seals, three of which were yearlings (between one and two years old), and the other a mature male.[14]

Extinction

Through the first half of the twentieth century, Caribbean monk seal sightings became much rarer. In 1908 a small group of seals was seen at the once bustling Tortugas Islands.[10] Fishermen captured six seals in 1915, which were sent to Pensacola, Florida, and eventually released.[15] A seal was killed near Key West, Florida in March 1922.[16] There were sightings of Caribbean monk seals on the Texas coast in 1926 and 1932.[17] The last seal recorded to be killed by humans was killed on the Pedro Cays in 1939.[18] Two more seals were seen on Drunken Mans Cay, just south of Kingston, Jamaica, in November 1949.[2] In 1952 the Caribbean monk seal was confirmed sighted for the last time at Serranilla Bank, between Jamaica and Nicaragua.[3]

The final extinction of the Caribbean monk seal was triggered by two main factors. The most visible factor contributing to the Caribbean monk seals' demise was the nonstop hunting and killing of the seals in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to obtain the oil held within their blubber.[19] The insatiable demand for seal products in the Caribbean encouraged hunters to slaughter the Caribbean monk seals by the hundreds.[20] The Caribbean monk seals' docile nature and lack of flight instinct in the presence of humans made it very easy for anyone to kill them.[12] The second factor was the overfishing of the reefs that sustained the Caribbean monk seal population. With no fish or mollusks to feed on, the seals that were not killed by hunters for oil died of starvation or did not reproduce as a result of an absence of food.[21] Surprisingly little was done towards attempting to save the Caribbean monk seal; by the time it was placed on the endangered species list in 1967 it was likely already extinct.[19]

Unconfirmed sightings of Caribbean monk seals by local fishermen and divers are relatively common in Haiti and Jamaica, but two recent scientific expeditions failed to find any sign of this animal. It is possible the mammal still exists, but some biologists strongly believe the sightings are of wandering hooded seals, which have been positively identified on archipelagos such as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

See also

References
  1. Lowry, L. 2015. Neomonachus tropicalis. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2015: e.T13655A45228171. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2015-2.RLTS.T13655A45228171.en. Downloaded on 03 December 2015.
  2. King, J. (1956). "The monk seals (genus Monachus)". Bull. Br. Mus. (Nat. Hist.) Zool. 3: 201–256. doi:10.5962/bhl.part.4123. ISSN 0007-1498.
  3. Rice, D (1973). Caribbean monk seal (Monachus tropicalis). In Seals. Proceedings of working meeting of seal specialists on threatened and depleted seals of the world, held under the auspices of the Survival Service Commission of the IUCN, 18–19 August. Ontario, Canada. Morges, Switzerland: Univ. Guelph, IUCN Publ, Suppl. paper.
  4. Kyle Baker; Jason Baker; Larry Hanse; Gordon T. Waring (March 2008). "Endangered Species Act 5-Year Review Caribbean Monk Seal (Monachus tropicalis)". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Marine Fisheries Service.
  5. https://www.pifsc.noaa.gov/hawaiian_monk_seal/population_at_a_glance.php
  6. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2012-03-16. Retrieved 2011-12-11.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  7. "Caribbean Monk Seal (Monachus tropicalis)". NOAA. Retrieved 13 December 2011.
  8. Jefferson, Webber (2008). Marine Mammals of the World, A Comprehensive Guide to their Identification. Amsterdam: Elsevier. pp. 470–471.
  9. Kerr, R (1824). A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels. London and Edinburgh. pp. vii.
  10. Moore, J (1953). "49". Distribution of Marine Mammals to Florida waters. pp. 117–158.
  11. Gray, J (1850). Catalogue of the Specimens of Mammalia in the Collection of the British Museum. London. p. v.
  12. Ward, H (1887). "The West Indian Seal (Monachus Tropicalis)". Nature. 35 (904): 392. Bibcode:1887Natur..35..392W. doi:10.1038/035392a0.
  13. Anon (1903). The West Indian Seal. New York.
  14. Townsend, C (1909). "The West Indian Seal at the Aquarium". Science. 30 (763): 212. doi:10.1126/science.30.763.212. PMID 17836790.
  15. Allen, G (1942). Extinct and vanishing Mammals of the Western Hemisphere. American Committee for International Wild Life Protection.
  16. Townsend, C (1923). The West Indian Seal. p. 55.
  17. Gunter, Gordon; Leedy, Daniel L.; McMurry, Frank B.; Schantz, Viola S.; Mickey, Arthur B.; Steele, Charles N.; Bishop, Sherman C.; Peterson, Randolph L.; Engels, William L.; Jaeger, Edmund C.; Angulo, Juan J.; Doetschman, Willis H. (1947). "General Notes". Journal of Mammalogy. 28 (3): 289–299. doi:10.2307/1375180. JSTOR 1375180.
  18. Lewis, C (1948). "The West Indian Seal". Natural History Notes of the Natural History Society of Jamaica. 34: 169–171.
  19. Adam, Peter (July 2004). "Monachus tropicali". Mammalian Species. 747: 1–9. doi:10.1644/747.
  20. Sloane, H (1707). "A voyage to the islands Madera, Barbados, Nieves, S. Christophers and Jamaica, with the natural history of the herbs and trees, four-footed beasts, fishes, birds, insects, reptiles, &c. of the last of those islands; to which is prefix'd an introduction, wherein is an account of the inhabitants, air, waters, diseases, trade &c. of that place, with some relations concerning the neighboring continent and islands of America". 1 (1). London, United Kingdom: 1–419. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  21. McClenachan, Loren; Cooper, Andrew B. (2008). "Extinction rate, historical population structure and ecological role of the Caribbean monk seal". Proc. R. Soc. B. 275 (1641): 1351–1358. doi:10.1098/rspb.2007.1757. PMC 2602701. PMID 18348965.
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