Caribbean Islands Reveal Deep Secrets as Protection Plans Catch Up
Beyond the shallow waters of Cayman, Anguilla, and Turks and Caicos, a nonstop six-week expedition captured footage of reefs, a new blue hole, and unusual creatures. BBC News has the exclusive footage. Now, the maps and protection plans need to catch up quickly.
A Ship Working on Borrowed Maps
On the research ship RRS James Cook, the salty air fills the air as the winch keeps running. For six weeks, the team worked around the clock, lowering cameras and echo sounders to depths of 6,000 meters, BBC News reported.
To navigate the Cayman Islands, Anguilla, and Turks and Caicos, the scientists relied on decades-old maps with serious errors and missing areas. The UK Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science shared its footage and discoveries exclusively with BBC News, which interviewed expedition leader Dr. James Bell.
Bell described the work as “the first step into environments people have never seen, and in some cases didn’t know existed,” he told BBC News. Near an uncharted underwater mountain called Pickle Bank, he said, “We’re not sure how close we are. It’s hard to map it without risking running aground.” The problem is that protection begins with a map.
A Reef That Still Breathes
The Pickle Bank rises from about 2,500m deep to roughly 20m below the surface, and once it was mapped, the cameras revealed coral-packed slopes. The team found one of the healthiest, most diverse reefs in the region, free from the ravages of stony coral tissue loss disease, which has affected the Caribbean. The reef may be protected, for now, by depth and steep terrain.
Deep-water, or mesophotic, reefs are usually too deep to be harmed by warming ocean temperatures. They added that since 2023, warming has damaged 80% of the world’s corals.
The expedition documented nearly 14,000 individual specimens and 290 types of marine creatures, including a pelican eel with a glowing pink tail that flashes red to attract food, BBC News reported. Bell described the diversity as “really, really astonishing.”
Drawing Boxes, Sharing Power
The UK shares responsibility for protecting the islands’ nature, and up to 90% of Britain’s unique species are found around British Overseas Territories. The Cayman Islands, Anguilla, and Turks and Caicos are home to 146 species found nowhere else.
The team mapped nearly 25,000 square kilometers of sea floor and took 20,000 photos. Bell told BBC News, “We know the surface of Mars or the Moon better than we know our own planet’s surface.” He added, “We can’t do that for our ocean. We have to map it bit by bit using acoustic instruments on ships.”
In Turks and Caicos, the team found a 3,200-meter-high mountain ridge stretching 70 kilometers along the seabed west of Gentry Bank. They also discovered a vertical sinkhole, called a blue hole, 75 kilometers south of Grand Turk. Bell described it as “like taking an ice cream scoop out of the sea floor,” a crater about 300 meters wide and 550 meters deep. Cameras inside showed sponges and an urchin, BBC News said.
North of Anguilla, BBC News reported that researchers followed local fishers’ tips and confirmed a 4-kilometer-long reef with coral mosaics growing in sponge gardens. They also found black coral that could be thousands of years old. Bell said, “It tells us these environments are really pristine and healthy.”
Scientists value water and steep mountains because they can funnel nutrients up to the surface, creating feeding grounds and fishing spots. CEFAS worked alongside environmental experts from the Cayman Islands, Anguilla, and the Turks and Caicos Islands, who will use the findings to improve biodiversity plans and identify new fishing opportunities. “Our islands were literally born from the sea,” Kelly Forsythe from the Cayman Islands Department of Environment told BBC News. “But when it comes to our offshore environments, we really haven’t had a chance before to discover what’s out there.”
The work should help the UK fulfil its legally binding UN commitment to protect 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030 in designated Marine Protected Areas. “Anyone can draw a box on a map and say, ‘That’s a marine protected area,'” Bell told BBC News. “But unless you know what’s in it, you don’t know if that’s useful at all.” In the Caribbean, ignorance is not neutral; it is a policy choice. Map it, then protect it. Map it, then share it.
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