[12][13] In 2018, the Government of India excluded 29 islands—including North Sentinel—from the Restricted Area Permit (RAP) regime, in a major effort to boost tourism.

[15] The Sentinelese have repeatedly attacked approaching vessels, whether the boats were intentionally visiting the island or simply ran aground on the surrounding coral reef.

[2][19]: 362–363 British surveyor John Ritchie observed "a multitude of lights" from an East India Company hydrographic survey vessel, the Diligent, as it passed by the island in 1771.

[21]: 288 Towards the end of the same year's summer monsoon season, Nineveh, an Indian merchant ship, was wrecked on a reef near the island.

An expedition led by Maurice Vidal Portman, a government administrator who hoped to research the natives and their customs, landed on North Sentinel Island in January 1880.

The colonial officer in charge of the operation wrote that the entire group "sickened rapidly, and the old man and his wife died, so the four children were sent back to their home with quantities of presents".

[2][20][21]: 288  A second landing was made by Portman on 27 August 1883 after the eruption of Krakatoa was mistaken for gunfire and interpreted as the distress signal of a ship.

[21]: 288 Indian exploratory parties under orders to establish friendly relations with the Sentinelese made brief landings on the island every few years beginning in 1967.

[2] In 1975, Leopold III of Belgium, on a tour of the Andamans, was taken by local dignitaries for an overnight cruise to the waters off North Sentinel Island.

After the Primrose grounded on the North Sentinel Island reef, crewmen several days later noticed that some men carrying spears and arrows were building boats on the beach.

[19]: 342 The first peaceful contact with the Sentinelese was made by Triloknath Pandit, a director of the Anthropological Survey of India (AnSI), and his colleagues on 4 January 1991.

[25] In January 2006, two Indian fishermen, Sunder Raj and Pandit Tiwari, were fishing illegally in prohibited waters and were killed by the Sentinelese when their boat drifted too close to the island.

An anthropologist involved in the case told The Guardian that the risk of a dangerous clash between investigators and the islanders was too great to justify any further attempts.

Sea turtles likely also occur near the island, as Portman referred to them also being a major food source for the Sentinelese and one was sighted on a 1999 survey of the surrounding waters.

[33][34] North Sentinel Island is inhabited by the Sentinelese, indigenous people who defend their voluntary isolation by force.

[9] Like the Jarawas whose numbers have been decreasing, the Sentinelese population would face the potential threats of infectious diseases to which they have no immunity, as well as violence from intruders.

[39] The Andaman and Nicobar Administration stated in 2005 that they have no intention to interfere with the lifestyle or habitat of the Sentinelese and are not interested in pursuing any further contact with them or governing the island.