Big Major Cay — a 32-acre uninhabited island in the Exuma Cays — gained its colony of feral pigs under disputed origins: some historians cite a failed livestock venture in the 1990s, others point to sailors who left breeding stock and never returned.
By 2010 the pigs had learned to swim to approaching boats, and the first viral images circulated. Today the island hosts roughly eighteen to twenty-four pigs at any given time, their population managed by the Bahamas Humane Society and local conservation groups to prevent overfeeding and habitat degradation.
The phenomenon reshaped Exuma's economy. Nassau tour operators began running dedicated pig beach bahamas tour from nassau departures in 2012, and by 2015 the swimming pigs generated an estimated twelve million USD annually across transport, hospitality, and conservation fees. The Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, established in 1958 as the first marine protected area in the Caribbean, now sees seventy percent of its visitor traffic concentrated at Big Major Cay, prompting the Bahamas National Trust to install mooring buoys in 2018 to prevent anchor damage to surrounding seagrass beds. The site's accessibility — ninety minutes by powerboat, two and a half hours by catamaran from Nassau — made it the most visited single-day excursion in the archipelago, overtaking historical landmarks like Fort Fincastle and the Queen's Staircase.
Marine ecologists from the Perry Institute for Marine Science published a 2021 study documenting the cay's coral reef health: elkhorn and staghorn corals populate the western shallows, and the adjacent Thunderball Grotto — a collapsed limestone cave featured in the 1965 James Bond film — sustains sergeant majors, yellowtail snappers, and queen angelfish. Tour operators now integrate snorkeling stops at the reef and nearby Rose Island, where green and hawksbill turtles nest between May and October. The pigs themselves are most active between 09:00 and 11:00, when boat traffic is lightest and the animals are hungry. Afternoon arrivals often find the colony resting in the island's interior shade, a behavioral pattern reinforced by years of morning feeding schedules.
5 hr 30 min
