Sharkwatch Cozumel is an open, community-driven scientific observatory that documents where sharks live, reproduce, and move around Cozumel Island (Mexico), part of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System and a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

We combine:

Local ecological knowledge from fishers, dive guides, and residents

Citizen science from snorkelers and tourists

Underwater field surveys

Geospatial mapping and open data

to produce verifiable, publicly accessible knowledge about shark nurseries, hotspots, and coastal habitats.

Our goal is to create a living megafauna map that anyone — scientists, communities, conservationists, and funders — can use to protect sharks and the ecosystems they depend on.

To produce open, trusted data on sharks and other megafauna so communities and conservation efforts can protect critical habitats.

Funding Sharkwatch does not fund a single research trip — it funds: A permanent, open megafauna observatory for one of the most important reef systems on Earth.

It creates:

Data for science

Signals for conservation finance

Evidence for policy

Education for communities

And a replicable model for other islands

Coastal sharks face increasing anthropogenic threats, but:

Official data is sparse, most monitoring ignores shallow, near-shore habitats

Local fishers and divers hold huge amounts of untapped knowledge

Without open, spatially explicit data, shark protection remains invisible in policy and finance.

Sharkwatch turns people into sensors and converts lived experience into open, scientific infrastructure.

What we are building, The Open Sharkwatch Atlas of Cozumel
A continuously updated, public geospatial layer showing:
• Shark sightings
• Juvenile and nursery zones
• Aggregation areas
• Overlap with fishing, tourism, and marine protected areas
This will allow anyone to see where sharks actually are, not just where models predict them.

Sharkwatch Cozumel operates as a public-good data and monitoring infrastructure supported by grants, community funding, and institutional partnerships. We generate open, verifiable megafauna and habitat data used by scientists, NGOs, educators, and conservation initiatives. Funding supports field data collection, software development, data validation, and community coordination, while all outputs remain open and non-proprietary.

Want to grow through just grant funding

Mexico, Cozumel Island

USD 40,000 (from conservation foundations, research grants, and project-based funding)