Claim: “Wild boars swim with bathers on Arrábida beaches in Setúbal”
At the end of the week, several social media posts shared a video purportedly showing “wild boars [swimming] with bathers on Arrábida beaches in Setúbal” or, more humorously, “strange dolphins on Arrábida beach.”
In the latter case, a tweet that has garnered over 97,000 views mentioned that a community note (still pending approval) stated that “the video was filmed in the Bahamas,” specifically on Pig Beach, Big Major Cay Island, in the Exumas archipelago.
Estes golfinhos na praia da Arrábida são estranhos 🤔 pic.twitter.com/4pqcd1nuQD
— Bilbia mt engarsada (@BilbiaOfissial) July 17, 2025
This version is also corroborated by Grok, the AI chatbot from X (formerly Twitter), which, in response to user inquiries, asserted and maintained that the video originated in the Bahamas.
Facts: The video was filmed on a Greek beach inhabited by a family of black pigs
Reverse searches of some video frames reveal it is shared in various languages and can be traced to a YouTube account of a Bulgarian travel agency, titled “cruise on the beach of happy pigs” and credited to “Seven island cruises.”
Further research into the name identifies it as a Greek cruise company in the Ionian Sea, Mediterranean, offering trips including a “piglet cruise” visiting Atokos Island, where participants can “swim with pigs.”
Checking the company’s Facebook page confirms the original video is indeed from Seven Islands Cruises and depicts a cruise to the uninhabited Atokos Island in the Ionian Sea, where a group of black pigs have lived for years and become a tourist attraction, as reported by the Greek Reporter.
Hence, the video is neither from Arrábida in Portugal—where wild boars have been spotted on some beaches in recent years, occasionally attacking people and subsequently being culled—nor from Pig Beach in the Bahamas, known for its wild pig population.
Lusa Verifica Evaluation: False
The viral video claiming “a group of wild boars swimming near bathers” was filmed on Arrábida or in the Bahamas is false. Fact-checking by Lusa Verifica concluded that the images are from a cruise to the deserted Atokos Island in Greece, inhabited by a family of black pigs accustomed to tourists.
