The Caribbean monk seal, west Indian seal (Monachus tropicalis), or sea wolf, as early explorers referred to it, was a species of seal native to the Caribbean and now believed to be extinct. The Caribbean monk seals' main predators were sharks and humans. Overhunting of the seals for oil, and overfishing of their food sources, is the established reason for the seals' extinction. 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 after an exhaustive five-year search for the seals, conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and National Marine Fisheries Service. Caribbean Monk Seals were closely related to the Hawaiian monk seals (Monachus schauinsla