the extinction of the caribbean monk seal was mainly triggered by overhunting in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to obtain the oil held within their blubber, fueled by the large demand for seal products. as early as 1688, sugar plantation owners sent out hunting parties to kill hundreds of seals every night for blubber oil to lubricate machinery. the caribbean monk seals’ docile nature and lack of an instinctive fear of humans made it an easy target, and hunting only ended (in the 1850s) because the population was too low for commercial use. overfishing of the reefs that sustained the caribbean monk seal population also contributed to their extinction. fish stock decline in the caribbean starved the remaining populations. little was done to protect the caribbean monk seal; by the time it was placed on the endangered species list in 1967, it was likely already extinct.