Extinct: Caribbean Monk Seal

HONOLULU (AP) -- Federal officials have confirmed what biologists have long thought: The Caribbean monk seal has gone the way of the dodo.

Humans hunting the docile creatures for research, food and blubber left the population unsustainable, say biologists who warn that Hawaiian and Mediterranean monk seals could be the next to go.

The last confirmed sighting of a Caribbean monk seal was in 1952 between Jamaica and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service confirmed Friday that the species is extinct.

Kyle Baker, a biologist for NOAA's Fisheries Service southeast region, said the species is the only seal to become extinct from human causes.

Doesn't look good, does it? Yet you occasionally hear of a species that was considered extinct that turns up again, and usually the local inhabitants say Oh, those? They've always been around. We didn't know you meant those. Hopefully that might be the case with the Caribbean Monk Seal.