2001 Isla Sorna Incident (S/F) / (S/F-S)

The 2001 Isla Sorna incident, sometimes called the Kirby incident, was an approximately eight-week-long international affair in which two American civilians became stranded on the offshore Costa Rican island of Isla Sorna between May 23, 2001 and July 20, 2001. Website engineering entrepreneur Ben Hildebrand and his girlfriend’s eleven-year-old son Eric Kirby were marooned on the island following a parasailing accident in which their guides, who were operating illegally in the restricted area, were killed by hostile wildlife. Hildebrand died due to internal injuries suffered during the crash, leaving Eric to fend for himself over the next eight weeks.

In July, the situation was escalated when Eric’s parents contacted paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant through his assistant Billy Brennan under the guise of a rich couple who had been granted access to fly over the island. Grant and Brennan agreed to give the Kirbys a tour of the island from the air, but were instead drawn into an unsanctioned rescue operation to extract Eric from Isla Sorna. They were accompanied by a group of three mercenaries hired by the Kirbys. All three mercenaries died during the incident. On July 20, the remaining civilians were removed from Isla Sorna by the United States Armed Forces.

Most of the incident’s timeline is gathered from Eric Kirby’s autobiographical book Survivor, though many of the significant events experienced by Eric were censored by order of government officials bribed by representatives from Masrani Global Corporation. For example, Eric and the other civilians encountered de-extinct life that had been created on the island between 1998 and 1999 in violation of the 1997 Gene Guard Act. Mentions of these animal species, with the exception of a single mention of Ankylosaurus, were removed from official records until years later. Survivor is considered a mostly reliable record of Eric’s experiences, but may not be completely accurate.

Background

Between the years of 1985 and 1993, International Genetic Technologies performed de-extinction research on several Costa Rican islands including Isla Sorna. The first animal to be brought back from extinction, a Triceratops, was cloned in 1986. This research was carried out in secret to avoid government oversight and to protect trade secrets from rival companies. A theme park called Jurassic Park was constructed on Isla Nublar, located east of Isla Sorna closer to the Costa Rican mainland, after the original San Diego location was abandoned.

On June 11, 1993, the as-of-yet-incomplete Park was toured by a small interest group put together by the InGen Board of Directors and CEO John Hammond. This endorsement tour group included prominent American scientists Drs. Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, and Ian Malcolm. During the tour, a disgruntled employee sabotaged the Park’s computer systems in order to steal trade secrets, setting off a chain of events that resulted in the deaths of several InGen employees and the ultimate failure of the Park. Later that year, the Site B facility on Isla Sorna was also abandoned. Despite the existence of a contingency plan to kill off abandoned animals by depriving them of essential amino acids, the animals survived due to poor planning on InGen’s part as the contingency failed almost immediately.

By 1997, InGen had been on the verge of Chapter 11 bankruptcy for four years. That year, the Board deposed Hammond as CEO and President, appointing Peter Ludlow in his place. Ludlow enacted a plan to utilize surviving assets from Isla Sorna to complete the original Jurassic Park facility in San Diego. Hammond sent his own team to sabotage this effort. The fallout of these two teams resulted in the San Diego incident of 1997, which revealed the existence of de-extinction to the general public. While many people considered de-extinction to be a worrying development, it was a source of fascination to others. The general public lost interest in traditional paleontology in favor of studying InGen’s animals, and though the United Nations restricted air and water travel to Isla Sorna, there were still those who attempted to reach it. InGen itself, meanwhile, fell into disarray and was bought by Masrani Global Corporation in 1998.

The next few years were troubled for Isla Sorna. Less than a hundred days after the Masrani Global purchase of InGen, genetic research resumed on the island in spite of new laws explicitly forbidding it. Between late 1998 and early 1999, InGen illegally cloned at least four new species on the island and performed amalgam testing there. The results were released into the wild and abandoned due to InGen’s fears of their research being discovered. The public, however, did not forget about Isla Sorna; many people still tried to access the island.

Costa Rican local Enrique Cardoso operated a small company called Dino-Soar with a single business partner, taking tourists parasailing near Isla Sorna under the nose of the United Nations. The operation ran with some success for a time, but abruptly ended on May 23, 2001 when Cardoso and his partner died during a tour. This accident marks the start of the Kirby incident.

Incident Summary

Wednesday, May 23, 2001

Midday

The Dino-Soar motorboat operated by Enrique Cardoso and his business partner brings American tourists Ben Hildebrand and Eric Kirby along the southwestern coast of Isla Sorna. The boat passes through a fog bank, where it is struck from the port side by an unidentified animal. Both men on the boat are knocked overboard; the assailant was not visible in camera footage of the incident, but has been suggested to be a Pteranodon. The boat collides with a rocky reef.
With the drivers missing and presumed dead, Hildebrand is forced to detach the parasail from the boat to avoid crashing into the ocean. He and Eric glide eastward into Isla Sorna.
The lack of a ground operator means that the parasail must make a rough landing. It crashes in the rainforest, east of the Embryonics, Administration, and Laboratories Compound. Hildebrand is seriously injured in the crash, though Eric is mostly unharmed. The video camera records the immediate aftermath of the crash, but is turned off shortly before Hildebrand dies due to internal injuries. The eleven-year-old Eric is now alone on the island.

Afternoon

Eric makes for the western coast in the hopes of signaling for rescue. He encounters a Tyrannosaurus patrolling its territory along the beach, as well as a hunting Pteranodon which harasses the tyrannosaur. Eric attempts to flee while the dinosaur is distracted. He manages to escape into the jungle while the tyrannosaur chases off a sauropod which had been sleeping at the edge of the forest.
On the mainland, Eric’s mother Amanda Kirby becomes concerned when Hildebrand and her son do not return. She eventually contacts her ex-husband and Eric’s father, Paul Kirby, to get help finding Hildebrand and Eric. However, the United Nations and American embassy in Costa Rica provide no assistance, presuming all missing persons to be dead.

Late Afternoon

Having fled a considerable distance into the jungle, Eric takes note of his surroundings and comes to the realization that he may not be rescued easily. The sounds of an approaching animal frighten him into the trees, where he hides. While in the tree, he encounters two-toed sloths and reasons that he can follow local animal life to safe food sources. By following the sloths, he finds an abandoned banana grove.

Night

Eric spends the night in the banana grove, though he sleeps only a little for fear of not being awake when an opportunity for rescue passes by. He faces the possibility that he has been declared dead and that no one may be coming to rescue him at all.

Thursday, May 24, 2001

Morning

Using the bananas as a food source, Eric begins to plan for the day. He is dislodged from the tree by a feeding Diplodocus, which is joined by three younger animals. Moments later, he stumbles over a small embankment and startles a family of Ankylosaurus; when he attempts to drive away a large predatory snake from one of the juveniles, the adults put up a threat display. Eric’s right shoulder is injured by a piece of rock that the ankylosaurs knocked from the ground in their display, and he flees down a small stream to escape them.

Night

Eric sleeps in a tree for the night.

Friday, May 25, 2001

Night

After nearly collapsing from hunger, Eric manages to spear a fish in the island’s large central river. He uses a lighter he has on hand to start a cooking fire. The light draws the attention of a pack of Compsognathus as well as one medium-sized animal that he cannot identify; he escapes by climbing into the trees, where he stays for the night again.

Saturday, May 26, 2001

Morning

Traveling almost aimlessly, Eric reaches the parking lot of the Embryonics, Administration, and Laboratories Compound. There are no signs of recent human activity, but no evidence that dangerous animals have recently been there either. He enters the main building through the back door and explores the kennels. Eric reasons that rescuers would begin their search here, as it is the most defensible place he has found on the island.
Eric explores the main building of the EALC, finding food and soda in the vending machines. He opens them using a bottle opener recovered from a desk. In some of the employee lockers, he finds backup handheld radios that have not been damaged; all he needs is a means to charge them.

Midday

While searching the building, he finds the production floor, which still has deteriorated experimental animal remains in it, as well as the building’s main lobby and computer laboratory. The cushions in the waiting area show signs of animal damage and the water in the water cooler is fouled with microorganisms and algae, so there is little for him to recover here. He checks the phone, but the line is dead, and it would have probably only been used for calls to elsewhere on Isla Sorna when the facility was in use.

Night

Eric spends the night in an office with barred windows, sleeping on the couch rather than in a tree for the first time in days. He wakes up around midnight to find a rat biting his hand. While his panicked reaction startles the rat away, Eric locks and barricades the door to keep other animals out. Even so, his sleep is plagued by nightmares.

Sunday, May 27, 2001

Morning

Determined to find the emergency generators, Eric searches through a wing of the building he has not yet checked. He finds the records, accounting, and personnel offices, as well as storage areas. Finally, he finds a steel door with a painted sign informing him that the backup generators are inside. This room requires an electronic keycard to access, and since the backup generators are off, the room is sealed shut. Frustrated, Eric begins to search for another way to get the door open.

Midday

Eric has found a ring of keys from one desk, an empty backpack from another, and a set of tools including a hammer, crowbar, screwdrivers, and cans of spraypaint in a maintenance closet. He assembles himself a toolkit from these items. Returning to the door to the backup generator room, he tries to force it open. He attempts to pry it with the crowbar, pick the keycard lock with a screwdriver, and bash the door in with the crowbar; none of these have any effect. He spraypaints DUH! on the doors, then goes outside to seek out a window. There is no window to the generator room, so he decides to try and find a different source of power.
While he is getting food, Eric is startled by the sudden appearance of a sloth; he decides to keep himself armed at all times, for example using his crowbar.
Using the ring of keys from the desk, Eric checks several more rooms in the building. He discovers more hallways and offices, as well as several laboratories and the recreation room. He also discovers the food storage rooms; one is filled with bland-tasting but still edible soy patties, while the other is filled with long-expired meat.
Eric goes to the roof of the building, spraypainting ERIC IS HERE in the hopes that helicopters will see it and rescue him. He works quickly as he spots a Pteranodon circling nearby.
Once he is set up comfortably in the EALC with his rescue message in place, Eric begins to run out of things to do. He loses track of what day it is after this point, so exact dates are unknown until the arrival of the second civilian party nearly eight weeks later.

Next few days

Eric spends much of his time in the rec room, reminiscing on days when his parents’ relationship was doing well, and mourning Hildebrand’s death.
Despite not knowing whether they will ever reach her, Eric writes letters to his friend Jenn from back home.
While waiting for rescue, Eric recovers and reads many of Site B’s technical manuals and information printouts.

Unidentified morning

One of Eric’s reading sessions teaches him about the banana plantations on Isla Sorna, which had been operated by the island’s inhabitants before InGen purchased it. The plantations were kept in place after InGen acquired Isla Sorna in order to provide food to the indigenous mammals on the island. Eric keeps the printout because it contains a map showing the locations of the banana groves.

Next few days

Eric locates a stream at the back of the EALC which he uses for bathing and washing his clothes; he makes a latrine in the nearby area.
One day, Eric attempts to hotwire one of the Land Rovers in the parking lot, having learned to do so from a criminally-inclined friend back in his hometown. However, he is unable to get the vehicle running.

Several days later

Midday

Out of boredom, Eric leaves the building to entertain himself. He sets up a makeshift hockey goal using tree branches and uses his crowbar as a hockey stick, aiming to shoot a soy patty into the goal. Before he can complete his swing, he spots a raptor on the roof of a building less than a hundred yards from his position. The animal leaps onto the hood of a nearby car, sniffing a candy wrapper that Eric had left there. At first Eric identifies the raptor as a Deinonychus, but soon realizes it is a Velociraptor. Eric is pinned down behind a jeep by an animal he cannot see, and the raptor approaches to investigate another candy wrapper and ultimately leaves without seeing him. Eric is released, realizing that the dinosaur that had pinned him down is a juvenile male Iguanodon; it had inadvertently gotten on top of him while attempting to hide from the raptor itself.
Eric cleans up the debris he has left around to avoid attracting any other raptors, while the juvenile dinosaur eats his makeshift goal post and the soy patty he was using for a puck.

Afternoon

Vowing to be more cautious, Eric barricades himself inside the building.
Eric chooses to fortify a section of the building, the area consisting of the computer labs and rec room. He chooses this area because it has numerous vending machines, sofas that are intact enough to use as beds, and many barred windows. He boards up windows that have been broken using wood he obtains by breaking desks and chairs.
At some point, Eric obtains a tool belt so he can always carry makeshift weapons.

Night

The rusted lock on the lobby’s double doors is too weak to hold up against a dinosaurian kick, and during the night the door is broken down. The crash wakes Eric, who does not immediately go to investigate out of fear. Unbeknownst to him, the juvenile Iguanodon and a pair of Velociraptors have broken inside.

Following day

Early Morning

Eric investigates the source of the crashing sound. After searching some empty offices and the rec room, he finds that a bookshelf has collapsed in one of the darkened offices. He dismisses this as the source of the crashing sound. He encounters the juvenile Iguanodon again; they both startle one another, but as the dinosaur breaks open the boards Eric had nailed over the window, he sees that it is not a predator. Eric assumes that the dinosaur was already inside the building when he locked and barricaded the main entrance.
Eric names the Iguanodon Iggy, valuing its companionship. He finds that the dinosaur has broken open a container of quick-dry glue and stepped in it, getting a paperback book glued to its foot. The book turns out to Dr. Alan Grant’s Dinosaur Detectives. As this is one of Eric’s favorite books, he keeps it with him.

Morning

Using soy patty crumbs, Eric begins luring Iggy to the storage room.

Midday

Iggy has been successfully led to the storage room, where he happily feeds on the soy patties left there.
Eric settles into the rec room with food from the vending machines and Dinosaur Detectives. While having a late breakfast and reading, he puts the knocked-over free weights back in place and notices that the edge of the rug has been clawed at. Checking underneath it, he finds a hatch, which he opens. Within, he finds a pair of rollerblades that appear to have been confiscated from an InGen employee before the evacuation. Having been forbidden by his father from using rollerblades, Eric tries them on.
While reminiscing on his difficult past, Eric is found by the two raptors that had gotten into the building earlier. He dodges as they both pounce at once, tossing various objects from the rec room at them in self-defense. One raptor is slowed down by being hit in the face with a throwing dart and having the Foosball table upended onto it, but both raptors pursue him down the hall. He uses supplies from a computer lab to defend himself against one of the raptors, then flees into the lobby and outside.
The ground is muddy from light rain, causing Eric to fall as he flees the EALC. The raptors close in, and Eric defends himself with the rollerblades, thick computer printout, and a tile knife. One of the raptors reaches him, but is stunned when Eric hits it in the head with a rock.
Eric scrambles through the parking lot after losing the raptors, discovering a small underground storage bunker which he hides himself inside. The raptors follow him to the bunker entrance, but cannot enter; Eric still holds the door shut manually for a long time, knowing that the raptors are intelligent enough to figure out how to open it.

Afternoon

Eric spends the rest of the day holed up in the storage bunker, suffering a panic attack. When he calms down, he becomes certain that no one is going to rescue him. He still has the book, and reading about dinosaurs evolving into birds becomes a form of inspiration for him to adapt and survive.
To pass the time and keep calm, Eric reads through the printouts he brought with him. He discovers that InGen was planning on building safe houses across the island, in the event that Site B’s workers ever needed to shelter in place for any extended amount of time while out in the field. Only one of these safe houses was ever constructed before the island was evacuated, approved for use as a test site. Eric considers that there might be a way to contact the mainland from the safe house and plans to journey there. Based on his map, the safe house is located miles away.

A few days later

Morning

Having stocked up on supplies from the EALC, Eric has now made two false starts toward the safe house. Each time, the fear of death has turned him back. Today is no different; upon reaching the tree line, he turns back. Unfortunately, while he is out, a Triceratops approaches the hatch of the bunker. It is an unusually cool morning, and a shaft of sunlight is hitting the metal hatch in just the right way to warm it up. The dinosaur goes to sleep there, preventing Eric from reentering, and even if he had gotten inside, the animal’s bulk is blocking the cracks that let air into the small space. With no other choice, Eric heads south toward the safe house.

Midday

A short distance outside the EALC, Eric finds an abandoned water tanker truck sunk in a pond, noting that it would be a decently secure place to hole up in the event of danger.

Afternoon

Several hours after setting off, Eric trips over the tail of a Tyrannosaurus that is lying on the ground. It is either sick or malnourished, however, and is too lethargic to get up and react to him. A pride of Velociraptors surrounds the weakened tyrannosaur as Eric flees into the lower branches of trees; he escapes through the canopy as the raptor pride attacks the former apex predator.
Eric remains in the trees for two or three more hours, though three of the raptors pass through the area. He remains concealed to avoid them. The raptors smell Tyrannosaurus urine collected in a puddle on the ground nearby and flee the area. He stays here another few hours before leaving.

Evening

Passing through a deforested valley, Eric takes shelter behind some tree stumps as a Pteranodon passes. He reaches the other side of the valley by nightfall.
At twilight, Eric selects a large garlic tree in which to spend the night. He falls into mud, which disguises his scent, and gathers foliage from the surrounding area to conceal the cleft in the tree where he will be sleeping.

Night

In addition to concealing his sleeping place, Eric makes a ghillie suit using foliage so he can blend in with the jungle. He sleeps lightly that night.
Around midnight, Eric wakes up to a scratching sound near the entrance to his hiding place, but when he checks there is nothing there. What he heard, unknowingly, was a flock of bats returning from their nightly activities.

Following day

Morning

Eric eats breakfast within the cleft of the tree and uses a mirror to check whether the coast is clear outside. His safety check draws the attention of a raptor lurking nearby, which attacks him, but Eric defends himself by beating the raptor in the head with his crowbar. He then shines a high-intensity flashlight in its eyes to blind it before hitting it again. The flashlight disturbs the colony of bats in the upper tree. The bats flock away from the light, surrounding and disorienting the raptor while Eric flees.

Midday

Having escaped the morning’s attack and fled across several hills, Eric comes across a waterfall. He recognizes the landmark from the map, meaning he is three miles away from the safe house. It takes him about twenty minutes to reach the waterfall, where he washes himself alongside a couple of Stegosaurus. While at the waterfall, Eric notices that land to the west of here has an unusual mottled pattern to the ground foliage which suggest heavy grazing by herbivorous animals.

Afternoon

The forest thins as Eric approaches the valley where the safe house is located. The area is filled with a herd of Iguanodons of all ages. Eric moves to descend from the trees, but is stopped when he sees four raptors appear below him. He spots others to the east and west of the valley. Upon closer inspection, the valley is hardly a lush habitat for the Iguanodons; they have grazed away all the edible plants and appear unhappy and stressed. Eric reasons that the raptors are intentionally trapping the Iguanodons in the valley to make them easier to hunt.
Eric witnesses the raptors make an organized attack on the herd, surrounding the herbivores and looking for a weak point. A juvenile Iguanodon accidentally exposes itself and trips on a tree stump located next to the safe house’s hatch, and the alpha male raptor (which Eric later dubs “Red Rings”) leads the pride to converge on the juvenile. Eric spots the back cover of a book stuck to the juvenile’s foot and realizes that it is Iggy. One of the subadult Iguanodons places itself between Iggy and the raptors, and Red Rings leads a dozen of the raptors in an assault on this new target. Iggy flees back to the herd while the remaining raptors form a defensive line to cut off the adult they are killing.

Night

The raptors feed on the fallen Iguanodon, and as night falls they return to their positions on the valley’s forested rim.
Another thunderstorm passes over the island, and the raptors are startled by lightning. A tree on the opposite side from Eric is struck, causing the raptors near it to scatter. Eric realizes he can use his crowbar as a lightning rod to create a distraction, enabling him to enter the valley without the raptors noticing.
Eric sets up his makeshift lightning rod, attempting to get into position to descend quickly using a rope. Before he can get the whole assembly together, the tree to his right is struck by lightning and falls into his own tree. He jumps as the two trees collide, flames from the struck tree spreading to his own. Eric tumbles over the valley’s rim, colliding with one of the sentry raptors; its head crashes into a rock as they fall. The raptors on the rim call out to the one which had fallen down, which does not seem to see Eric. While the storm keeps the raptors panicked and distracted, Eric flees into a series of caves in the side of the valley. Exhausted, but out of sight, Eric tries to rest but falls asleep for the night.

Following day

Morning

Eric wakes as the storm subsides. Using a pocket flashlight, he investigates the caves for several hours. It appears to be free of predators, and is surprisingly extensive. He tries to memorize the layout.

Midday

Five raptors are currently in the valley; two are sleeping while three others are picking the last bits of meat off some Iguanodon bones. They are between the cave mouth and the safe house entrance. Eric formulates a plan; he lays out a trail of candy and wrappers to draw the raptors into the cave, then leaves a spare flashlight burning down the left tunnel while he hides in the one to the right. He disguises his scent using dirt.
The raptors follow the candy trail into the cave and then investigate the flashlight, and Eric follows the cave to emerge at a different entrance. As he moves to exit, a raptor passes by the cave mouth, but does not notice him; one of the raptors from inside the cave finds and charges him, but he stuns it using a rock before it can alert the others. From here it is about a hundred yards to the safe house hatch, and Eric makes a run for it.
Some of the Iguanodons are sleeping or grazing, and Eric’s sudden appearance and frantic running catches their attention. They become frightened and defensive, and the raptors have also become wise to Eric’s presence. Eric is still twenty feet from the herd, and thirteen raptors are closing in on him; he manages to hit the lead raptor using a thrown rock, but the others keep coming. Eric flees into the herd and dodges the adults’ defensive maneuvers. The raptors do not follow him into the herd. He is injured when one of the dinosaurs knocks him into the ground with its tail, but they have by now realized that Eric is not a threat and ignore him. Red Rings calls the raptors to retreat. Safe for now, Eric is able to open the hatch and enter the safe house.
The safe house’s security system is still functional, and upon Eric’s entry, the independent generators start up. The lights and air circulation turn on, and he shuts the door behind him to keep dinosaurs out. They lock shut. He finds supplies of food, water, technical manuals, and clothing, but no communication equipment. The radio and computers are missing. In the first of two larger lockers he finds two fully-charged stun guns, gas grenades, padded clothing, and a charger for the weapons. The second locker is empty. Eric finds a construction schedule; it reports that the computers and communication equipment were to be installed the upcoming Tuesday, but there are no logs after this one, meaning that the island was evacuated before the safe house was complete. Realizing that he cannot communicate with the outside world, Eric has a meltdown.

Following day

Morning

Eric plans to use the stun gun charger to start up the radio at the EALC. The safe house generators fail moments later; he is forced to use one of the stun guns to provide power to the door locks to escape. He gears up using equipment found in the room, including the padded clothing, safety goggles, and a helmet; he also arms himself with tear gas canisters and the other stun gun. He carries the charger out from the safe house.
Locating Iggy, Eric uses a candy wrapper to ensure the dinosaur recognizes him. He uses a length of cord from his backpack to secure the charger to Iggy’s back. Red Rings rallies the raptors while the Iguanodons protectively move in on Iggy. Eric banks on the herd being willing to fight the raptors to escape the valley, and he leads the charge.
Red Rings does not immediately join the battle, but sends two raptors to flank Eric. He stuns the raptor to his right while the one to his left pounces. Eric manages to stun the second raptor as it lands on him, recovering from the attack; he then uses a gas grenade to attack Red Rings directly. With the alpha raptor briefly incapacitated, Eric moves in with his stun gun; the other raptors move in to protect their leader, but he drives them away with another gas grenade and takes down two with the stun gun. One of the male raptors tackles Eric to the ground, but Eric manages to stun it with a direct shot to the mouth.
The Iguanodon herd flees the valley while the raptors are occupied, making no sign of joining Eric in battle as he had hoped. Most of the raptors chase the herd, while Red Rings comes for Eric. His stun gun fails and he is pinned down. Red Rings manages to tear off the face plate to Eric’s helmet, but Eric escapes his grip and manages to get a final charge out of the stun gun. Red Rings is hit directly, which startles the other raptors. Eric drives some away using a gas grenade. Eric finds one of Red Rings’s sickle claws blown cleanly off, and he takes it.
Some of the Iguanodons escape the valley, but the raptors desperately try to contain the rest. Three of the larger Iguanodons have been killed. Eric uses tear gas to keep the raptors away from the fleeing herd, which abandons its wounded members. Most of the raptors then descend into the valley to eat the dead dinosaurs, while the last three try to pick off smaller and weaker Iguanodons.
Eric locates Iggy, finding that the charger has been irreparably damaged and the nylon cord used to secure it snagged on a tree branch. Two raptors target Iggy, and Eric tosses a gas grenade to drive them back. The third raptor tackles Eric and rips off his protective jacket, but gets its claws caught in the padding; Eric chases it away by throwing a rock at it. He frees Iggy by cutting the cord with the raptor claw, then retreats into the trees.

Following day

Evening

After a full day, the raptors abandon the valley, their social hierarchy in disarray after their alpha male was defeated. Eric makes his way back toward the EALC, spending the night in a tree. While there, he witnesses a Triceratops drive away a Tyrannosaurus in the distance.

Following day

Midday

Eric reaches the EALC, but rather than attempt to defend it as before, he decides to make a home inside the sunken water tanker truck. He no longer has any plans to be rescued, and resolves only to survive.

June and early July

Throughout the next few weeks, Eric makes the water tanker livable. He continues to make supply runs to and from the EALC, and at one point harvests tyrannosaur urine in a beaker to keep raptors away. The scent repels many smaller carnivores, but he discovers that it enrages another apex predator, the Spinosaurus.
At some point, Eric turns twelve.

Wednesday, July 18, 2001

Midday

Paul and Amanda Kirby‘s flight over Isla Sorna in Beechcraft Super King Air 200 N622DC arrives, passing over the island from the west. At this point, paleontologists Dr. Alan Grant and Billy Brennan are unaware that the Kirbys are attempting a rescue mission. They are accompanied by three mercenaries: pilot M. B. Nash, equipment specialist Cooper, and booking agent Udesky; in particular, Udesky is only here to fill in for a man who was unable to show. While the group tours from the air, they pass the Site B airfield and plan to land. Grant panics and tries to stop the landing, but is knocked unconscious by Cooper. The airplane lands, and the mercenaries go to set up a perimeter.
Amanda uses a megaphone to try and call to Eric and Hildebrand. Grant recovers; he and Brennan realize that this is not a simple tour operation. The island’s Spinosaurus is drawn in by the noise, and comes into conflict with the mercenaries. It wounds Cooper while the others escape, and the group attempts to evacuate on the airplane. Cooper runs onto the airstrip and tries to flag them down to stop, but this draws the dinosaur onto the airstrip as well. As the dinosaur grabs Cooper, the airplane clips its sail, injuring it. The airplane careens into the jungle nearby, becoming suspended in the trees.
The dinosaur approaches the airplane and tears the cockpit off to get at the humans inside, killing and eating Nash, who was holding the group’s satellite phone at the time. The airplane’s cabin falls from the tree and the survivors flee the area.
While fleeing from the spinosaur, the group runs into a male Tyrannosaurus which chases them away from its food; this draws it into a territorial conflict with the spinosaur that results in the tyrannosaur’s death. While the animals have their conflict, the surviving humans flee the area in safety.
The Kirbys are forced to come clean about their motivations for being on the island. Grant is dismayed to learn that not only is he not here for his paleontological expertise, he is not even going to be paid for his troubles. The group discovers Hildebrand’s remains at the parasail crash site, recovering a video camera that shows Eric survived the crash.
The group discovers a Velociraptor nesting colony near the crash site. They retreat from the area, though Brennan covertly takes two eggs with the intent to sell them on the black market to fund his and Grant’s careers. The raptors return to the nesting site shortly after the humans leave, discovering two missing eggs and beginning to track them.

Afternoon

Locating the EALC, Grant and the others search for signs that Eric is around. They explore the main building, but are accosted by one of the male raptors from the nearby pride. The raptor chases them into the nearby jungle, calling its pride to come assist. They flee through a herd of hadrosaurs to evade the raptors, and Brennan loses the camera bag containing the eggs; Grant recovers Brennan’s bag (not knowing its contents), but becomes separated from the others.
Udesky also becomes separated from the group, and he is cornered by a male and female. He is overwhelmed, and the male stabs him in the spine with its toe claw, leaving Udesky’s lower body paralyzed. They leave him as bait for the other humans. Brennan and the Kirbys climb a tree to escape, but spot the wounded Udesky below; Amanda tries to rescue him and the raptors spring their trap prematurely. Meanwhile, the alpha female calls her subordinates to help search for the eggs; the pair of raptors near the tree kill Udesky and depart.
Grant is surrounded by raptors. He is unexpectedly rescued by Eric, who was on his way to the EALC for a supply run. Eric uses the last of his gas grenades to drive the raptors away from Grant, bringing him safely to the water tanker truck. Eric is surprised to learn that his parents are cooperating to rescue him, and that they were able to recruit a celebrity scientist. Grant and Eric shelter in the tanker while Eric describes how he managed to survive. The raptors avoid his home because of the tyrannosaur urine he keeps in a flask, the scent of which makes most animals wary.

Night

Grant and Eric stay the night in Eric’s tanker truck.
Brennan and the Kirbys, despite trying to call to Grant, spend the night in their tree for safety.

Thursday, July 19, 2001

Morning/Midday

Grant and Eric leave the tanker to try and make it to the deep channel in the middle of the island. Brennan and the Kirbys are traveling in roughly the same direction.
The Spinosaurus, which makes its home in the central island near the waterways, is still nearby; the satellite phone on Nash’s semi-digested corpse is ringing, which Eric assumes is coming from his father (the ringtone is the Kirby Paint and Tile, Plus jingle). His excited shouting reaches the other group, and the noise made by both as they find one another draws the attention of the Spinosaurus. Grant, Brennan, and the Kirbys evade it by locking themselves inside the observatory of the Site B Aviary.
Grant discovers that Brennan stole raptor eggs, and reasons that this was why the raptors attacked them. He considers destroying the eggs, but realizes that not having the eggs as leverage when the raptors ultimately catch up to them might be more dangerous. The group descends into the Aviary to try and access an InGen transport barge located on the river. At this point, they do not realize the nature of the structure they are inside, and a fog bank blocks their view.
While the group attempts to cross a catwalk, one of the Pteranodons grabs Eric and attempts to feed him to the Aviary’s youngest inhabitants. Brennan uses the parasail taken from the crash site to rescue Eric, though the Pteranodons converge on him. The others are deposited into the river when the catwalk collapses under their combined weight; one of the adult pterosaurs is killed in the collapse. Brennan is mauled by the other pterosaurs as the river washes him out of the Aviary; his friends are unable to rescue him, being forced to flee out of the Aviary in the opposite direction. During their escape, the Aviary’s door is not properly secured. They leave from the Aviary’s dock using the barge.

Afternoon/Evening

The river barge is slow to move, but gets the survivors gradually south toward the ocean where they will hopefully be able to signal for help. Grant and Eric mourn Brennan, who they presume dead. By late afternoon, they have reached an open field filled with dinosaurs about halfway to the ocean.

Night

While traveling toward the ocean, the group hears the satellite phone again. They locate it within mounds of spinosaur dung, along with undigested clothing and bone belonging to Cooper and Nash. Unfortunately, the call coming in on the phone is spam; there is no actual person on the line. There is only enough power left on the phone for one call out, so they do not immediately use it up.
The group spends the night on the river.

Friday, July 20, 2001

Morning

A severe thunderstorm passes over the southern island while the survivors continue south, and the Spinosaurus rams the barge from the front. The group shelters inside the cage while Grant barely manages to get a call in to his friend and ex-lover Dr. Ellie Sattler in Washington, D.C.; it is roughly 8:00am in D.C. at the time. She immediately informs her husband, U.S. State Department official Mark Degler, of the situation; the United States government learns of the ongoing incident. The barge is sunk near a construction site by the angry dinosaur; Grant manages to drive it away by igniting spilled gasoline using a flare gun. Paul nearly dies in the attack, but ultimately all those involved survive.
The U.S. Armed Forces are granted permission to sweep the island to rescue the civilians. As per Grant’s barely-intelligible message, they search the river first, recovering Brennan in critical condition.

Midday

The group makes the last leg of the journey over land. When they reach the point where they can hear the ocean, they are suddenly ambushed by the raptors; their alpha female confronts Amanda, assuming her to be the humans’ leader. The eggs are returned; Grant confuses the raptors by using a replica of their resonating chamber to mimic their call for help. Coincidentally, a military helicopter passes within hearing range as he does so; the raptors take their eggs and flee at hearing the helicopter “respond” to Grant’s cry for help.
Responding to a government employee calling to them through a megaphone, Grant and the Kirbys find that the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps have arrived to remove them from the island. They find that Brennan has survived thanks to the timely intervention of the Armed Forces.
The survivors are flown by helicopter to one of the aircraft carriers waiting off the island’s southern coast. As they fly out, the surviving adult Pteranodons are also sighted leaving the island. The removal of Grant, Brennan, and the Kirbys is generally recognized as the end of the 2001 Isla Sorna incident.

Aftermath

Isla Sorna’s fate was brought into question with this incident, which revealed that the island had not been left untouched as the law demanded. The existence of new species on Isla Sorna, particularly the Spinosaurus, was removed from most reports; government officials were bribed by members of Masrani Global Corporation to bury much of the survivors’ accounts. Legal consequences faced by Brennan and the Kirbys are presently unknown, but they are guilty of numerous crimes and responsible for the deaths of four people (Ben Hildebrand, Cooper, M. B. Nash, and Udesky).

The ecosystem of Isla Sorna itself was disrupted by human intervention. A Velociraptor clan was broken up by the wounding of its alpha male Red Rings, and numerous Iguanodons were killed when Eric instigated their fight with the raptors. The rescue operation caused further damage, resulting in the death of one of the island’s apex predators, the possible death of two raptor eggs and disruption of the raptors’ breeding behavior, and the release of the formerly-caged Pteranodon longiceps hippocratesii population. The island had already been sent into disarray when many new animals were bred and abandoned in 1999; the Kirbys’ operation only sped up the process of ecological collapse. Despite attempts at scientific research to save Isla Sorna, conditions continued to worsen over the next few years. By 2004, the damage was considered to have become irreversible, and the surviving animals were brought to Isla Nublar for their own wellbeing by the time Jurassic World opened on May 30, 2005.

Effects of the incident were felt on the mainland as well. The three escaped Pteranodons were eventually sighted over Victoria, British Columbia; their appearance caused some amount of panic, an incident which was pointed to by anti-dinosaur activist group Extinction Now! in later years. American security contractor Vic Hoskins was hired to subdue the pterosaurs; his performance impressed Simon Masrani, who offered Hoskins a position as Head of InGen Security. Hoskins accepted the job and was brought on to the construction of Jurassic World, which commenced less than a year later in early 2002.

While this incident was not directly responsible for the end of Isla Sorna’s golden age, it certainly did no favors to help dinosaurs survive in the wild. Between 1997 and 2002, human intervention threatened the survival of de-extinct life on both Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna; these islands were no longer untouched havens. Between 2002 and 2005, the possibility of dinosaurs living and flourishing without human interference became all but impossible as Isla Sorna was emptied and Isla Nublar converted into a tourist attraction. The escaped pterosaurs were eventually neutralized, with many being returned to the Site B Aviary until the facility on Isla Nublar could house them. The hiring of Vic Hoskins by InGen Security furthered the exploitation of dinosaurs; even Dr. Grant’s research was used to this end, as he had been one of the first scientists to begin interpreting Velociraptor communication. His studies and experiences during 2001 formed one of the basic pillars of the I.B.R.I.S. Project conducted by InGen between 2012 and 2016. It would not be until the 2015 incident on Isla Nublar that dinosaurs would be able to roam freely in any capacity, and even then, their environment and their world had been drastically changed forever.