I confess I was entertained the first time I saw a pink iguana trundling out of the scrub to greet me. A pink iguana? It was like a Bahamas Barbie with black shoes and a lizard’s face.

On other beaches in the Exumas, there are swimming pigs, stingrays that nuzzle your toes, sea turtles that want grocery-store lettuce, and nurse sharks the size of linebackers that photobomb your snorkeling adventures. 

These wild creatures have become a significant revenue center for Bahamian tourism, and for other destinations worldwide. In Exuma, charter boats carry hundreds of visitors to islands daily for the “wilderness adventure” of getting close–sometimes too close–to wildlife scavenging for human food scraps. 

Swimming with the pigs has become one of the “must-do excursions in the Bahamas,” according to one tour operator’s sales pitch. “They (the islands) are visited annually over 6.6 million times. Swimming with the pigs has become internationally famous.”

Whose idea was this, and where did the pigs come from? According to the company Swimming with Pigs, the swine were brought to an uninhabited island in the Exumas “by farmers decades ago to rid Staniel Cay Village of the stench.” Now, tourists pay big money to experience it for themselves. A private eight-hour tour costs $3,900, “excluding snacks, towels, gratuity, and a 5% credit card processing fee.”

There is etiquette for swimming with pigs. Posted rules include:

1. Feed the pigs only approved foods, which are mostly bread, fruit, and vegetables. Your tour guide will provide you with information about other foods acceptable for feeding.
2. Don’t feed the pigs on the beach. Keep their survival instincts in-tact [sic] by feeding them in the water.
3. Be cautious. Don’t feed directly from your hand. Gently toss the food in the water beside the pig. Pigs are not very coordinated creatures.
4. Do not alarm the pigs. Don’t take advantage of them. Do not harm them. These Exuma pigs are still wild animals and can be dangerous if threatened. (The italics, for emphasis, are mine.)

To corroborate the importance of Etiquette Rule Number 4, Google the phrase, “Venezuelan Instagram model Michelle Lewin Bitten by Wild Pigs.” Ms. Lewin found out the hard way that pigs crave people food when she was chased by wild swine on Big Major Cay. Apparently, it wasn’t too traumatic for her because she laughed and posted a close-up image of the raw-looking pig bite on one globe of her buttocks. She now has 16 million followers on Instagram.

And then there was this pandemonium when the television show The Batchelor filmed an episode on Pig Beach:

For those who don’t know, the premise of The Batchelor is a single, handsome guy who entertains a bevy of attractive young ladies from whom he is expected to select a fiancée. This guy in this episode entertained the girls on Pig Beach. I wonder how that worked out for him.

But it’s not just pig swimming that you get for $3,900 a day. The tour also includes visits to harbors where you can (for an extra fee) swim with nurse sharks. These are large, docile creatures that usually eat crustaceans, but they have become accustomed to being fed fish parts when humans are present. Some tourists forget that these sharks are also wild animals.

Katarina Zarutski, a 19-year-old nursing student at the University of Miami, was bitten by a nurse shark while vacationing in Exuma. According to an account in Business Insider, she posed for a photo in the water, and one of the sharks bit her arm and dragged her underwater for nearly eight seconds. She healed from the shark bite after undergoing multiple rounds of antibiotics to prevent infection, and surgery to remove pieces of nurse shark tooth embedded in her arm.  

“I respect wildlife tremendously,” she told Business Insider. “They’re wild animals, and it’s an uncontrollable situation. It’s important to remember to be careful.” The magazine reported that after the story of her shark bite went viral, Zarutskie’s Instagram went from having around 13,000 followers to 46,000 followers.

Another Exuma charter company promotes their tours this way: “After experiencing eye-catching scenic views, you meet with friendly sharks and iguanas trained by professional instructors to create your custom experience by touching, feeding, and interacting with our pleasant marine mammals. During the tour, our captivating team not only creates an ambiance with relaxation for body, mind, and soul but prepares a special blend of our secret ingredient, ‘Bahamas Experience,‘ while sipping aromatic cocktails and beers with notes of mango on the open waters, admiring a panoramic view of the picturesque waters, sandbank, and cays. Can your vacation taste any better? Like Dunkin Donuts… ‘It’s worth the trip.'”

I also wanted to “taste the experience,” but I don’t like crowds, so I pulled my dinghy ashore on Leaf Cay late in the day after the tours had ended. I had watched a dozen boats, commercial and private, land on the beach of this gorgeous 30-acre undeveloped island. Leaf Cay may be undeveloped, but it is inhabited–by hundreds of Bahamian northern rock iguanas.

As I stepped onto the island, the underbrush rustled, and dozens of fat pink iguanas suddenly surrounded me. They looked at me with shifty red eyes, and when they saw that I didn’t have food in my hands, one by one, they turned away to find a warm stone and wait for a more generous visitor. 

The Bahamian northern rock iguana is a colorful species of lizard that has seen its numbers decline in recent years. Less than 5,000 animals still linger in the wild, and Leaf Cay remains one of the best places in the Bahamas to see them. On its website, a yacht management company writes: “Say hello to the rock iguanas, a local and endangered species. They are friendly and welcoming to visitors – especially if you come with grapes! Once your yacht tender touches the shore, you’ll be greeted with masses of grey and pink iguanas waiting for their fruity snack.”

The problem is biologists have found iguanas fed by tourists on remote islands in the Bahamas have developed a sweet tooth and high blood sugar because tourists feed them grapes. A National Geographic article on Bahamian wildlife tourism notes that iguanas might be losing their normal appetite for grazing on local plants (wild dilly, black torch, darling plum, and blolly) as they flock to the places where they’re more likely to get high-calorie treats. Chuck Knapp, a scientist from the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago who has made a career studying Bahamian iguanas, told National Geographic that he worries some rock iguanas may be showing signs of diabetes. He has noticed iguanas have begun to poop sand. He thinks this might be from eating food like grapes left on the beaches. 

It is not just in the Bahamas where tourism is affecting marine wildlife. In the Florida Keys, dockside tarpon feeding has become a carnival sideshow, turning one of the world’s most magnificent gamefish into bait-eating beggars by tourists who hand-feed them fish pellets and rancid sardines. In Boca Raton, a woman was bitten on the forearm by a small nurse shark, and it refused to let go even after it was killed. Witnesses told the Sun Sentinal newspaper that a group of people had been harassing the shark and pulling its tail when it turned on the woman and bit her. She was admitted to the hospital with the shark still attached to her arm.

Astonishingly, we have not evolved to the point where humans no longer need to dominate other living things for pleasure and entertainment, even if they are pink iguanas. Learning how to tread more respectfully in nature has taken me decades. I understand that we all must earn our daily bread, but if there is an option to earn that dollar through observation and appreciation instead of manipulation, why not follow a more ethical path?

References:

• Bahamas National Trust, (2008), Endangered Species of the Bahamas: Bahamian Rock Iguana
• National Geographic, (6 Aug 2018), Can the Bahamas Keep Wildlife Tourism in Check? Sarah Gibbens
• Phys.org, (22 April 2022), Ecotourism giving rare iguanas a sweet tooth, Kelly MacNamara
• Iguana Specialist Group, Iguanas are among the world’s most endangered animals
• Yacht Management, (28 Sep 2018), Things to Do: Visiting the Animals of the Exuma Cays
• YouTube, (8 Feb 2016) Swimming with Pigs! – The Bachelor
• Washington Post, (16 May 2016), ‘It wasn’t letting go’: Woman rushed to hospital with a shark attached to her arm, Lindsey Bever
• Business Insider, (12 July 2018), A 19-year-old model was bitten by a shark while she was on vacation in the Bahamas, Nian Hu 

As always, sailing is not just about the wind and the sea; the places, the flora, fauna, and people encountered along the way are equally important.

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Let this be a time of grace and peace in our lives – Rev. John C. Baker