Cayman’s two swim-with-dolphin tourist attractions may be open as soon as next month.
Both Dolphin Discovery at the old turtle farm site in West Bay, adjacent to Boatswain’s Beach, and Dolphin Cove Cayman by Morgans Harbour have had a few delays but are still focused on opening this year, if possible.
‘We’re opening some time in December,’ said one of Dolphin Discovery’s developers, Dale Crighton. ‘We’re not too sure of a date yet though,’ he said.
‘We were moving quite well but we lost a week because of the hurricane [Paloma].’ This was because they had to move materials and get the site ready for the storm, he noted.
‘We’re still very close to schedule,’ he added.
Dolphin Discovery developer Gene Thompson said that all staff members have been hired for the facility but he declined to say how many people are employed.
The main building is completed, with the dolphin lagoon currently being finished.
Dolphin Cove should be up and running by the end of this year, said Construction supervisor Neil Burrowes.
‘We’ve had quite a bit of delays but we’re trying our best,’ he said. ‘We’re hoping to open before the end of this year, but nothing is concrete. We’re waiting on electricity. We’d love to catch the winter season.’
Dolphin Cove is working on getting landscaping finished.
So far it has hired only a handful of staff out of the 50 it plans to start with, said Mr. Burrowes.
‘We want to hire as many Caymanians as we can,’ he stated.
As it is only bringing in four dolphins initially, which will come from Dolphin Cove in Jamaica, out of a potential of 12 that it has import permits for, it will initially need 50 staff, but the plan is to grow that to 100 as time goes on and the business grows, he said.
Import licences issued for dolphins for both facilities are subject to certain health conditions at the time of importation and other conditions prior to import. The facilities must also satisfy regulatory requirements such as water discharge and environmental impacts.
So far only one of the dolphin facilities has a permit for discharge of effluent into the marine environment.
Dolphin Cove was issued a discharge permit by the Water Authority in 2005 following an anti-degradation study.
The Cayman Turtle Farm was granted a discharge permit effective from October. At that time the Water Authority noted that Dolphin Discovery, as a tenant of the Turtle Farm property, will be subject to the same regulations as the Turtle Farm’s discharge permit, which will require a variation.
‘All effluent waste is monitored and regulated at a single point of entry and exit to the property, which encompasses the Turtle Farm and all its tenants,’ said a Water Authority press release.
This variation on the Turtle Farm discharge permit has not yet been granted, the Water Authority has confirmed.
In answer to questions from the Caymanian Compass, the Water Authority responded, ‘Dolphin Discovery submitted an Environmental Monitoring Plan. Water Authority has reviewed this and asked a number of questions. Upon receipt of satisfactory and complete answers the Water Authority will consider the variation of the permit.’
The dolphin facilities face some opposition from the public in the Cayman Islands for various reasons including environmental issues associated with such facilities and the potential negativity stemming from an industry involving the capture and trade of wild dolphins.
The Cayman Islands Tourism Association strongly opposes dolphin facilities and recently called on the Minister of Tourism Charles Clifford to ban the future importation of dolphins because they believe it is damaging to the destination as a whole.
The CITA position paper begins, ‘Once again, we beseech the Cayman Islands Government to seriously consider the implementation of a ban on the future import of cetaceans, as other nations have done, to protect these marine mammals, the environment, the reputation of the Cayman Islands, our large water-associated tourism product and the culture and heritage of these islands.’
Local campaign group Keep Dolphins Free in the Cayman Islands, The Cayman Humane Society and The Marine Conservation Board have expressed that they are against the setting up of such facilities.
In October 2006 the government placed a moratorium on any new captive dolphin facilities but grandfathered in the two facilities that were granted import permits for bottlenose dolphins: Dolphin Discovery and Dolphin Cove Cayman.
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