It has been a year almost to the day that Coco the Tiger Shark was tagged off Grand Cayman. Coco was the youngest of the three female tiger sharks in the collaborative tagging programme between the Department of Environment (DoE), Marine Conservation International (MCI), the Guy Harvey Research Institute (GHRI) at Nova Southeastern University and the Save Our Seas Foundation and Foster’s Food Fair.

The project has done extensive survey of the sharks around the Cayman Islands, providing information on the types and numbers of sharks and ray that we have. While there are fewer sharks than expected, they are particularly low on Cayman Brac. Timothy Austin, Deputy Director of the DoE, remarked that “There have been scientific studies on coral reefs to show that the presence of sharks promotes healthy reef life, which is a worry for us as we depend on tourism to our shores”. The main threats to Cayman sharks is our attitude and this we need to address if our coral reefs and the life they support are not to decline further. As the recent documentary film by Dr. Guy Harvey has shown, “sharks are not the bad guys”.

Coco left Cayman last June and has spent her time off of Jamaica, but in early February, she headed back towards our shores and finally arrived home. However, she may not remain for long. The tag she is sporting has proven to be very successful in keeping track of her movements, giving us insight into the life of a young tiger shark. All three tagged tigers have proved to be energetic, crossing great swathes of the Caribbean Sea relatively quickly. Of the three including Luiza and Tina, Coco has remained the longest around favoured areas.

But Dr. Mauvis Gore, Marine Conservation International, noted “Coco may wander further afield as she matures and has the capacity to undertake even longer migrations”.  Dr. Gore is part of an international team from MCI and leads the project funded by the UK’s Overseas Territory Environment Programme (OTEP) and the Save Our Seas Foundation. The project also works with fishermen and divers whose expertise and observations are important to the  project. Any sightings of shark, whale or dolphin helps and can be reported to the DoE at  [email protected] or on 949-8469.

Marine Conservation International (MCI) is a partnership formed by marine scientists to enable them to pursue projects with conservation objectives in the most effective way.  The Directors (senior partners) are Dr. Rupert Ormond, previously Director of the University of London‘s Marine Biological Station, and Dr. Mauvis Gore, a senior research fellow at the Millport Marine Station, and previously Director of Conservation with the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland.  Both Directors have considerable experience of marine biological research and conservation projects stretching back over nearly 40 years and have Adjunct Professorships at Heriot-Watt University.

Save Our Seas Foundation was founded in 2003 as a non-profit organization with offices in Genève, Jeddah, Dubai, Miami, Cape Town and Edinburgh. It undertakes and supports conservation and research projects concerned with endangered marine species and habitats — notably sharks, marine turtles and coral reefs. It operates two shark centres (for educating and research) one in Kalk Bay near Cape Town and the other in Fort Lauderdale. Shark species which are the subject of research projects include great white shark, common tiger shark, bull shark, basking sharks, silky shark, blue shark, whale shark and grey reef shark, and work on cetaceans ranging in size from the blue whale to the dolphin is also being supported. Conservation, Awareness, Research and Education are the four principals at the heart of the foundations mission. www.saveourseas.com