The Tribune

By DESIREE K CORNEILLE

Across the globe, from South Africa to Australia, India and throughout the Caribbean, conservation efforts are yielding powerful results. In The Bahamas, these successes are becoming harder to ignore. Sea turtles are nesting and congregating in numbers not seen in decades. Shark populations are rebounding, with sightings near Montague and Goodman’s Bay and across Exumian harbours.

One of our first signs of local recovery was the return of the white-crowned pigeon, once in decline but now rebounding under the protection of the Wild Birds Protection Act of 1952. Preferring remote mangroves and inland coppice, it has avoided major conflict with humans but remains at risk as development expands across both habitats.

But with these wins comes a new and less predictable challenge. This time, the problem is not decline. It is resurgence.

As wildlife returns, we are seeing the rise of human-wildlife conflict. Not because nature is vanishing, but because it is coming back.

Elsewhere, this may mean elephants damaging crops or wolves taking livestock. Here, it looks like sharks circling docks and swimmers, or turtles grazing seagrass beds where conch once thrived. Across our islands, people are voicing new concerns, not about extinction, but about how to coexist.

The laws that helped restore our wildlife now overlap with the daily lives of those living and working alongside nature.

The question is no longer just how to protect species.

It is how we plan to live with them, responsibly and sustainably, as they return.

The turtle problem no one expected

In 2009, The Bahamas, through the Fisheries Resources (Jurisdiction and Conservation) Act, made it illegal to capture, possess, sell, or consume any of the nation’s five marine turtle species: hawksbill, green, loggerhead, leatherback, and olive ridley.

Since then, aided by marine protected areas and strong legal safeguards, green sea turtles have made a remarkable comeback. Once hunted for meat and shell or caught as bycatch, they now swim freely and graze across expansive seagrass meadows. But that grazing, while natural, is reshaping underwater landscapes in unexpected ways.

Seagrass beds are critical nursery grounds for queen conch, a keystone species in Bahamian culture and economy. As early as 2003, Allan W Stoner of the Caribbean Marine Research Center noted that overgrazed meadows in Exuma and parts of Eleuthera might be reducing juvenile conch survival. Today, fishers are raising similar concerns, citing seagrass loss, declining conch densities, and frustration.

“Something must be done. It’s happening too often, us reeling in half-eaten gamefish,” complained one western-based Nassauvian fisherman.

A 2024 report by the Perry Institute for Marine Science, in partnership with the Bahamas National Trust, flagged this growing overlap between recovering turtle populations and stressed conch habitats as a priority for further study and urgent monitoring. Similar concerns are now echoed by community scientists and marine wardens tracking habitat degradation across several family islands.

Sharks in the shallows

Sharks, too, are reclaiming their place in the ecosystem. Long protected under Bahamian law, since the abrupt 2011 ban on commercial shark fishing, our waters are now among the most shark-rich in the Western Hemisphere. This has powered a thriving shark tourism industry and restored balance to marine food webs. But not everyone is celebrating.

While some celebrate this as ecological resilience, others see it as direct competition.

Fishers complain of losing catch after catch to sharks that linger near boats, harbours, and cleaning stations. One fisher put it bluntly: ‘I’m being outfished by protected predators.” Dive operators and snorkel guides are also seeing increased shark presence in shallow zones, especially where feeding and chumming occur to boost wildlife sightings. Law enforcement officers often get pleas to help some communities advocate for open seasons on some of the most successful no take species. Law enforcement officers worry that introducing open seasons might whet a demand that becomes hard to regulate. Policymakers remain divided on what’s best.

A 2023 study by the Cape Eleuthera Institute and Florida International University documented increased shark activity in nearshore areas of New Providence and Bimini, attributing it to a combination of climate-driven habitat shifts, fish waste disposal practices, and the predictable presence of food near popular tour areas.

While sharks are not actively targeting people, their growing proximity to human activity is forcing tough conversations about risk, access, and long-term management.

Conservation’s success is colliding with daily life

What we’re witnessing is not the failure of conservation. It is its consequence. Yet no national policy exists to address these growing tensions. This conversation is overdue.

These incidents reflect a broader pattern, one where wildlife recovery is reshaping how Bahamians interact with the sea. Snorkellers on day and yachting charters now expect turtles alongside them. Kayakers report shark sightings in mangrove creeks and sandbars once considered safe. And while not yet formalised in Bahamian policy, campaigns by coastal homeowners in Florida and Australia to divert turtle nesting suggest similar pressures could emerge here.

Other countries are moving faster. Australia has implemented real-time shark tracking, netted swim zones, and feeding bans to reduce human-wildlife incidents. In Kenya, communities impacted by elephants and lions are offered compensation and a voice in management. Even in Florida, turtle lighting ordinances help balance nesting success with development.

In The Bahamas, these conversations remain fragmented. And as wildlife continues to thrive, silence may come at a cost.

Are we truly in conflict or just in competition?

We often frame these tensions as if wildlife is invading our space. But was it ever truly ours? This isn’t an overpopulation of animals. It’s a reckoning. After decades of environmental damage, we are now challenged to share space with nature once again. And unlike before, we cannot push wildlife out without unravelling the very progress we’ve made.

This moment raises uncomfortable but necessary questions:

• re we prepared for the side effects of successful conservation?

• ho gets priority in contested spaces—local communities or returning species?

• s the issue really wildlife resurgence, or the unchecked spread of human ambition?

• ow do we shape policies that honor both ecological needs and economic realities?

• nd what happens when the line between success and setback begins to blur?

The way forward must be smarter than the problem

Conservation cannot end at protection. It must grow into coexistence. That means grounding decisions in science, engaging communities, and accepting that the next frontier of sustainability is not saving species, it is managing their return.

This requires deliberate planning: updating marine spatial strategies, regulating feeding and chumming practices, studying species overlaps, and developing legal tools for conflict resolution and stakeholder compensation. It may even involve mapping marine wildlife corridors—defined zones that allow turtles, sharks, and other migratory species to move safely through high-use areas. Around the world, from the Coral Triangle to the Great Barrier Reef, planners are testing these approaches to reduce conflict, support migration, and align development with biodiversity.

Because if communities begin to view sharks, turtles, or other recovering wildlife as threats to their way of life, it won’t be long before conservation itself is seen as the enemy.

And that is a risk we cannot afford.

If we get this right, The Bahamas will not just be a conservation success story. It will become a model for coexistence.