Cayman's Reef Sharks Just Got Their Own Spot on the World Map

It's Monday, and I'm starting the week with good shark news. That doesn't happen every week, so I'm taking it.

Last week the Cayman Islands Department of Environment announced that three Cayman dive areas have been named Important Shark and Ray Areas. ISRAs, if you like acronyms. The title comes from the IUCN Shark Specialist Group, the scientists who keep track of how sharks, rays and their odd cousins the chimaeras are doing around the world.

Where are Cayman's new shark hot spots?

The three sites:

• Queen's Highway, on the northeast coast of Grand Cayman
• Gun Bay, on the southeast coast of Grand Cayman
• Bloody Bay on Little Cayman, which overlaps the Bloody Bay Marine Park

All three made the list because of one animal. The Caribbean reef shark. It's listed as Endangered, and it likes to hang out in groups at these spots.

Gun Bay is the standout. Divers saw sharks on 42.3% of their logged dives there, in groups of up to fifteen. Fifteen. Queen's Highway came in at 37.4%, with up to five at a time.

The new title doesn't create any new laws. Nobody is roping off the reef. What it does is hand the people who plan marine parks, write policy and fund research solid evidence of where the sharks actually are. That counts for a lot.

Divers did the counting

My favorite part? Regular divers made this happen.

The evidence came from the Sharklogger Network, a citizen science program the DoE started in 2016. Recreational divers turned in more than 57,000 dive surveys between 2017 and 2025, noting every shark they saw (and, I assume, a few they hoped they saw). The scientists ran the numbers, and all three areas met the international criteria.

So every diver who surfaced, dried off and filled in a log instead of heading straight for a rum punch was helping. I find that kind of wonderful.

If you dive or snorkel in Cayman, you can join in. Email sharkloggers@gmail.com and your logs can count toward the next round. The IUCN plans to look at the region again in ten years. Lotsa dives between now and then.

Why I care (besides the obvious)

Those of you who know me know I've spent a lot of time underwater. Fin Fleming spends even more. Writing a scuba diving mystery series means I think about reefs constantly. What lives there. What's at risk. What happens when somebody gets greedy.

A healthy reef has sharks on it. Every diver I know would rather see a shark cruise by than look out over an empty reef. If you like your Cayman Islands mystery with real reefs and real wildlife in it, that's what I'm aiming for in the Fin Fleming books.

So tell me. Have you ever dived with Caribbean reef sharks? Or would you rather not?

Source: Cayman Islands Department of Environment, Oct. 20, 2026