During his second voyage in 1494, Christopher Columbus’s crew killed eight Caribbean Monk Seals to harvest for their meat. Columbus called the seal a “sea wolf” before it was officially named the Caribbean Monk Seal. Unfortunately, the slaughter didn’t end with Columbus and his crew. European exploitation of resources in the Western Hemisphere included the widespread slaughter of these seals, who were officially declared extinct in 2008 by NOAA after a five-year investigation.
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