The Caribbean monk seal is extinct. Florida’s 19 records are historical strandings, museum specimens, or archival reports from before the species disappeared, not evidence of a living population. NatureServe lists it SX, Presumed Extirpated, and the global rank is GX, matching its IUCN status of Extinct.
The records are spread too thin to show any real pattern, with only two months holding a single report each. That isn’t a seasonal signal. It’s simply what’s left of a species that vanished from Florida and Caribbean waters decades ago.
