a small monk seal colony on Seranilla Bank, between Honduras 

 and Jamaica, in 1952. 



In 1979, the Caribbean monk seal was listed as 

 endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Although the 

 species may or may not have been extinct at that time, the 

 listing was necessary to protect any surviving animals. 



During 1985, the National Marine Fisheries Service 

 reviewed available information on the Caribbean monk seal as 

 part of its five-year status review pursuant to the 

 Endangered Species Act. Based on its review, the Service 

 concluded that the species was extinct and it therefore 

 considered action to remove the Caribbean monk seal from the 

 Endangered Species List. 



In late 1984 and early 1985, there were a number of 

 unconfirmed reports of sightings along the north coast of 

 Haiti of what may have been one or more Caribbean monk seals. 

 No other species of seal occurs naturally in waters surround- 

 ing Haiti and thus the reports may provide evidence that the 

 species is not extinct. Alternatively, the reports could 

 have been of a seal that had strayed south from northern 

 waters (a rare sighting of a hooded seal was recently 

 reported from Florida) or perhaps a trained California sea 

 lion that had escaped from captivity. Therefore, in an 

 attempt to assess these unconfirmed reports, the Commission 

 contracted in 1985 for a survey of fishermen and other resi- 

 dents of northern Haiti to identify, document, and assess the 

 reliability of recent and past sightings of the Caribbean 

 monk seal or other seals. The preliminary results of the 

 survey, which were provided to the Commission early in 1986, 

 confirmed at least one recent and reliable sighting of a 

 seal. From the observer's account, however, it was not 

 possible to determine whether the animal was a monk seal or 

 some other species of seal or sea lion. 



On 12 February 1986, the Commission wrote to the 

 National Marine Fisheries Service and provided it with the 

 study findings. While the results did not provide conclusive 

 evidence of the species' continued existence, the report of 

 an unidentified seal from Haitian waters raises the possi- 

 bility that the species is not yet extinct. Therefore, the 

 Commission recommended that the Service take no steps to 

 remove the Caribbean monk seal from the Endangered Species 

 List. The Service subsequently advised the Commission that, 

 based on the report and on the Commission's recommendation, 

 it would take no action to remove the Caribbean monk seal 

 from the Endangered Species List and that the status of the 

 species would be re-examined in five years. 



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