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Aruba
 Aruba has plans for its first dolphinarium on De Palm Island just off south coast. The facility will be managed by De Palm Tours and will house captive bred dolphins from “Roatan Institute for Marine Sciences”, Honduras and “Dolphin Academy”, Curacao. The set up is rumoured to be identical to the one in Curacao where animals are kept in sea pens or lagoons. The facility will also offer dolphin assisted therapy (DAT) despite no compelling evidence that DAT is a legitimate therapy or that it affords any more than fleeting improvements in mood (see box below).
Despite there being worldwide opposition to the proposed facility De Palm Tours have not however abandoned their plans.
As well as the welfare arguments against keeping dolphins in captivity, additional barriers exist with regard to environmental impact. Dolphin sea pens are a significant source of nutrient pollution and can cause ecological damage to marine ecosystems. With Aruba’s considerable tourism development based on the coral reefs, particularly for divers, destruction of the marine environment would have a huge impact on numbers of future visitors.
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