In September 2017, the Dolphin Discovery project at Blowing Point was severely damaged by Hurricane Irma. As a result, the owners transferred the dolphins and their operations to St. Kitts.
Now, according to Anguilla’s Minister of Economic Development, Mr. Kyle Hodge, the project is to be brought back to the island.
“On the Foreign Direct Investment side, we continue to see an increase of interest in either new projects or the revival of projects that were affected by COVID or Hurricane Irma,” he stated, [and] “we have the dolphin project in Cul-de-Sac, Blowing Point, that is set to return early next year. The developers of that project should be on the island doing the initial surveys of the damage [caused by Hurricane Irma], and what it would take to get that project up and running again.”
Minister Hodge continued: “Of course we know that the dolphins were transferred to St. Kitts-Nevis right after Irma. There is still an existing MOU for that project and so the developers are slated to return to Anguilla.”
During its operations, the dolphin project attracted a large number of day-trippers to Anguilla from St. Maarten where they arrived on various cruise ships. They then came over to Anguilla for sight-seeing which included tours to the dolphin project. Many taxi-drivers benefited much from the tours – and the local economy profited much from both tourist arrivals and immigration and customs fees.
The project was, however, not without criticism from concerned groups and individuals who were not supportive of having the dolphins in captivity. The Dolphin Discovery project nevertheless functioned well until it was severely damaged by Hurricane Irma, thus forcing its transfer to St. Kitts.
