Big Major Cay entered the global imagination in 2009 when a photographer's images of feral pigs paddling through turquoise water reached viral circulation. The island, a 3.
2-kilometre uninhabited speck in the Exuma Cays, had been home to a small colony of domestic pigs since the 1990s — local lore credits sailors who left them as a future food source, though the animals were never retrieved. Fed intermittently by passing fishermen and later by tour operators, the pigs developed a unique behaviour: they swim out to approaching boats, trained by years of association between engine noise and food.
The Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, established in 1958 as the first marine protected area in the Caribbean, lies 15 kilometres north of Big Major Cay. While the pig island itself falls outside the park's boundaries, the broader Exuma chain — 365 cays stretching across 190 kilometres — forms one of the Bahamas' most biodiverse coastal zones. The surrounding waters support nurse sharks, sea turtles, stingrays, and dense coral gardens. Nassau cruise port, 97 kilometres west, became the primary departure point for pig beach excursion from Nassau cruise passengers after 2012, when tour operators began packaging the pigs with snorkelling stops at Thunderball Grotto and turtle encounters at nearby sandbars.
A pig beach excursion from Nassau cruise tour typically departs between 07:00 and 08:00, allowing for the 90-minute crossing by speedboat or two-hour journey by catamaran. The pigs — currently numbering between 20 and 30 — are most active in early morning light, before midday heat drives them inland. Tour operators enforce a no-touch policy and prohibit feeding human snacks; carrots and specially sourced produce replace the bread and junk food that caused health problems in the colony's early tourism years. The Bahamas Humane Society and local veterinarians conduct quarterly health checks. Big Major Cay remains free to access, though all arrivals occur via chartered boat — no public ferry service exists, and the island has no infrastructure beyond a small freshwater spring the pigs use for drinking.
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