Washington, June 10 : Lack of evidence has led researchers to confirm that the Caribbean monk seal is now officially extinct.
According to a report in Discovery News, the Caribbean monk seal was last seen in 1952 on a small group of reef islands between Jamaica and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.
Covered in brown fur tinged with gray, and with a yellow belly, the animal was easy prey for European settlers in the 1600s and 1700s, who killed it for meat, oil, and to seal the bottoms of boats.
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.