Luxury hotel shuts down attraction after 'living nightmare' in pool exposed
Heartbreakingly, the tanks at the Mexican hotel where they were confined were just metres from the Caribbean Sea near Cancún, a holiday destination popular with foreign travellers. Conditions at Dolphinaris Barceló at Barceló Maya Grand Resort were so concerning that this week it was ordered shut, and its gates were sealed by the government's environment protection agency PROFEPA.
Outspoken activist Phil Demers has repeatedly shared aerial footage of the dolphins on his Urgent Seas social media channels and called for their release. Speaking with Yahoo News on Friday, he said the dolphins had been living in shadeless pens that were 'very shallow'.
'It was a living nightmare for all of the dolphins there. The size was disproportionately small for what they needed. It was absurd, frankly,' he said.
'One of the great tragedies is the contrast of the size of their pool against the vast ocean, which is just metres away. Conditions were awful.'
An investigation into the facility was launched after a shocking moment at the park that was broadcast across social media in February, 2025 highlighting to the world how small the tanks were.
Filmed five years ago and then stashed away, it showed a dolphin attempting to perform a trick, misjudging the edge of the pool, and then crashing onto the edge. That animal survived, and was moved to another facility, but he is now blind in one eye and has just 60 per cent vision in the other due to keratitis — a condition that causes inflammation of the cornea.
PROFEPA said the facility in southwest Mexico's Quintana Roo had been closed due to 'various operational irregularities".
They included a failure to report "dangerous incidents", acrobatic performances that endanger animals, unregulated water temperature, forcing animals to complete tricks when unwell, and problems with water temperature.
BREAKING: The dolphin tank at Hotel Barcelo in Riviera Maya, Mexico has been permanently closed. Thank you to all the tireless advocates who fought so hard for this resolve. Now we must ensure the dolphins are responsibly removed and relocated. More to come. pic.twitter.com/2jvIaE694e
— @UrgentSeas (@urgentseas) May 13, 2025
Demers said the outcome highlights both the power of social media and the work of activists who protested there every day.
'This has gone on for far too long, but credit to the activists who never gave up. Sometimes there were only one or two protesters out front, but they never gave up,' he said.
Now that the facility has been closed, the focus is turning to what happens to the dolphins. The most likely outcome is that they will be moved to another facility, sparking fresh concerns that their lives will continue down a sad path.
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According to Demers, the closure of Dolphinaris Barceló tells a much bigger story about the failure of dolphin parks. Last year, US-based Miami Seaquarium was ordered to close following an investigation by authorities, while Marineland Antibes permanently shut its doors due to declining attendance and improved animal welfare regulations in France.
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