Seahorse National Park at Sweetings Pond, the 2nd designated national park for Eleuthera, and the thirty-third nationally, which falls under the management of the Bahamas National Trust (BNT) is said to be nearing its time for a much-anticipated reopening to the public. During the month of February 2025, Elijah Sands – Senior Communication Officer with the BNT, confirmed that significant progress had been made in reference to the park, situated just north of the Hatchet Bay community.
“The BNT has made progress at Seahorse National Park… As a reminder, shortly after the groundbreaking, around this same time last year, we immediately went into fundraising for the national park. The immediate funds we raised went into primarily, science, securing the property, control and access points, and also conducting comprehensive surveys to determine what sensitive resources are in the park, like the seahorses and some of the other marine organisms to determine what a suitable and sustainable visitor experience would look like… Since then, our science and parks teams have been working together to establish protocols and guidelines for visitors,” informed Sands, ensuring that the park could be enjoyed responsibly and emphasizing the balance between accessibility and ecological responsibility.
The team he shared had successfully established a mobile office on-site and created new trails and access points, in preparation for opening. “Just this week, we’ve sent the first vehicles to Eleuthera. So we now have vehicles on the ground for the park and our temporary office – our mobile office is now on property. We’ve created new trails and new access points and we’re now putting up the mobile office along with some temporary restrooms, and plan for a potential opening in March.”
He expressed excitement as the BNT aimed to welcome locals and visitors, without delays, despite the challenges of securing reliable construction vendors and hiring necessary personnel to maintain the park. “Our hope is that we can open in March of 2025 without any delays. It was pretty hard to find construction vendors to do some of the work. There’s a lot of construction going on, so reliable construction vendors, supplies, materials [have been a challenge]. Then we had to hire personnel for the park – people to to secure the grounds, to maintain the grounds, site monitors, etcetera. So, we have finally started making a lot of those things happen and you can expect to see more information from the BNT very soon about a potential opening…, if all goes well.”
