Park Problems (C/N)

Due to its highly complex nature, InGen’s Jurassic Park project was plagued with various technical and animal welfare issues even before the Isla Nublar Incident. According to John Arnold, Jurassic Park suffered from all the problems that any other amusement park would, such as crowd control, maintenance of attractions, transportation, food handling, living accomodation, security and disposal of trash. In addition to this, the park also had all the problems of major zoos worldwide, involving animal care and health, cleanliness and safe barriers between specimens on display and guests. These issues, while not particularly unusual for the average zoo or theme park, were made all the more stressful due to InGen’s mission of creating and caring for a population of animals that had never been studied before in the flesh.

Both John Arnold and Robert Muldoon were able to appreciate the inherent dangers with re-creating extinct animals, and voiced their concerns to the more neglectful John Hammond, explaining to him that nearly all of the fifteen species bred for display were potentially hazardous to human life. Both the Jungle River Ride and Pteratops Lodge attractions (containing Dilophosaurus and Cearadactylus specimens, respectively) had had to be delayed due to the volatility of their inhabitants, and Muldoon was adamant that the Velociraptors were too aggressive to be kept in captivity. Indeed, he was convinced that they were deserving of being put down, after they destroyed the radio collars that he had requested to be fitted on them. As well as these safety concerns, biological problems were also on InGen’s mind. These included:

  • The two Tyrannosaurs drinking water from the lagoon and inexplicably becoming ill.
  • The Triceratops population engaging in fights for dominance, resulting in deaths and the animals having to be split up into groups smaller than six.
  • Stegosaurs contracting a mysterious illness, the symptoms of which included tongue blistering and diarrhea. The disease resulted in the deaths of two animals. Although the park’s veterinarians were unsure of the illness’s cause, it ultimately transpired that it was caused by the Stegosaurs digesting poisonous West Indian Lilac berries along with gizzard stones.
  • Skin rashes found in the Hypsilophodon populaton.

The park’s vast computer system was also rife with various, inexplicable glitches. These seemingly random issues were the cause of much confusion and delay within Jurassic Park’s day-to-day running. The bug list counted at least 130 items on the sytem. Examples of these included:

  • Griding gears present in the Land Cruisers.
  • Animal feeding progam resetting itself every twelve hours rather than the required twenty-four and not recording feedings on Sundays, affecting dinosaur feeding records in the process.
  • Security program (controlling all security card-operated doors) only operating with main power activated, meaning that in the event of a main power failure, the system would not be able to run with auxiliary power.
  • Physical conservation program (designed to dim lights after 10:00pm) only functioning correctly on alternate days of the week.
  • Automated fecal analysis system (known as Auto Poop)  mysteriously and invariably recorded all animal specimens as having the parasite Phagostomum venulosum. If handlers attempted to remove the medication dispensed into the animals’ food, an alarm sounded that could not be turned off.