Jurassic World – Isla Nublar (S/F)

August 11, 2019

Jurassic World was a de-extinction theme park and resort operated by International Genetic Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Masrani Global Corporation, on the Costa Rican island of Isla Nublar between 2005 and 2015. It exhibited de-extinct animal and plant life to the public for the purposes of both entertainment and education, as well as housing a large research facility for interdisciplinary scientific studies. It was heavily based on the earlier failed Jurassic Park resort, which was constructed on the same island between 1988 and 1993 before being abandoned. Jurassic World formerly had an official website located at islanublar.jurassicworld.com; in February 2018 it was heavily vandalized by hacktivists from the Dinosaur Protection Group and many parts of the website are no longer accessible. In 2021, the website was decommissioned permanently.

Jurassic World opened on May 30, 2005 after three years of active operations on the island devoted to preparation and construction. It operated successfully for ten years without major incident, adding hundreds of de-extinct animals and plants to its menagerie and performing groundbreaking research in multiple scientific fields. The park was formally closed following events on December 22, 2015 involving the escape of a genetically-modified hybrid theropod, a heavily publicized pterosaur attack which injured numerous tourists, and the death of CEO Simon Masrani.

Name

The name of the second Isla Nublar park was decided upon by Masrani Global’s CEO at the time, Simon Masrani, in 1999. Masrani had considered reusing the name Jurassic Park, but by 1999 had decided to rename the attraction. Rebranding it as Jurassic World was intended to reinforce the idea that the new park would have a grander scope than its predecessor. According to Simon Masrani, the name “Park” sounded too much like it belonged in the 1980s, as well as having negative connotations with the 1993 and 1997 incidents.

Other names considered by Simon Masrani for the new park included Jurassic Island, The Lost World, Prehistoric World, Jurassic Land, Dino Island, Cretasia Island [sic], Roaming Reptiles, and Dinosphere. On a more lighthearted note, “Giant Chicken Island” was jokingly suggested.

Location

Like Jurassic Park before it, Jurassic World was located on the volcanic island of Isla Nublar in the East Pacific Ocean, approximately 120 miles west of Costa Rica. InGen had taken out a lease on the island in 1985 which was not set to expire until 2081, so the terms of the lease were still technically intact when InGen returned for its second attempt in 2002.

Jurassic World occupied nearly all of Isla Nublar, but excluded certain areas that were set aside to preserve the natural biodiversity of the island. In some cases, Sector 5 of the island was not included in Jurassic World due to the fact that no tourist attractions were intended to exist there. However, it was still part of the same facility.

The park was abandoned following the incident on December 22, 2015; the park infrastructure remained mostly intact until three years later, when the June 23, 2018 eruption of Mount Sibo destroyed most of what remained on the island.

Description
A map of Isla Nublar as of 2015-2018 (as interpreted by Jurassic-Pedia staff, 2019)

Jurassic World was a state-of-the-art education, entertainment, and research facility and one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world between May 30, 2005 and December 22, 2015. Operating hours were 8am to 10pm, and a minimum of 20 attractions were run at any given time during operation. The park was divided into six zone sectors designated Sectors 1-6, divided with physical barriers as well as invisible fence technology. The facilities within Jurassic World which existed as of 2015 are listed by sector below. A “Sector 7” has been mentioned, but the location described was within Sector 6, so this is assumed to simply be a mistake.

Sector 1
Sector 2
Sector 3
Sector 4
Sector 5
  • Security Wall
  • Jurassic World East Dock
    • Monorail Station
  • Northwest Dock
    • Monorail Station
  • Motorpool
  • Radio Bunker 02-17
  • North Mount Sibo Genetics Centre
    • Atrium
    • Operations
      • Breaker Room
      • Storeroom
    • Zone A: Residence and Corporate
      • Residence
        • Lobby
        • NMS Retail
        • Information Desk
        • Administration and Security
        • Hammond Restaurant
        • Residence A
        • Residence B
      • Corporate Suite
    • Zone B: Transport – Communications Tower
      • Communications Room
      • Monorail Station
    • Zone C: Transport – Ranger Station
      • Welcome Concourse
      • Supply Room
      • East Depot
      • North Depot
      • Equipment Storage
      • Dispatch Office
      • Transfer Bay
      • Asset Holding
      • Engineering
      • Secure Warehouse
    • Zone D: Creation Lab
      • Lobby
      • Reception
      • Changing Rooms
      • Store Room
      • Incubation Lab
      • Nursery
      • Cold Storage
      • Behavioral Lab
      • Specimen Preparation
      • Amber Processing
      • Botanics
    • Zone E: Genomics Lab
      • Genome Lab Entrance
      • Dr. Amelia Everett’s Office
      • Decontamination
      • Clean Room
      • Genome Research
      • Computational Genomics
      • Recombineering
      • Server Access
      • Server Rooms
      • Mainframe Control
      • Central Analysis
      • Sequencing
      • Supply Room
      • Conference Rooms
      • Administration
    • Zone F: Geothermal Power Plant
      • Surface Access
      • Control Room
      • Plant Access
        • Administration
        • Human Resources
        • Maintenance
        • Engineering
        • Canteen
        • Turbines
        • Vapor Regulation
        • Condenser Room
        • Manual Override
        • Meeting Rooms
  • Camp Cretaceous
    • Entrance Gates
    • Campsite
      • Fire Pit
      • Tree Top Cabins
        • Elevator
        • Bunkrooms
        • Main Hall
        • Staff Room
    • Observation Tower
      • Zipline
  • Compy Pen
  • Herbivore Enclosures
  • Carnotaurus Pen
  • Facility 4
  • Paddock 11 (incomplete as of 2015)
  • Paddock 13
  • Field Genetics Laboratory
    • Main Rotunda
    • Hatchery
    • Henry Wu’s Private Office
    • Cryonic Containment (marked as “under construction” indefinitely)
  • Supply Storage
  • Zone 224
  • Tun-Si Reservation
  • Dinosaur Security Bunkers
  • Monorail
    • Northwest Station
    • NMS Station
    • East Station
  • Transport Roads
  • Stations
  • Maintenance and Service Tunnels
    • Backup Control Room
Sector 6

Note that, on some maps, Sectors 5 and 6 are mislabeled, and that numerous newer maps show these facilities in completely incorrect locations. The directory above is based on the satellite map that was accessible from the Jurassic World Control Room during the period of time that the park was actually open, as well as pamphlets and other film-canon material produced around 2015. None of these maps contain a complete list of all facilities and most contain contradictory elements; this list is compiled from a reconciliation of the contradictory sources.

This listing is incomplete; much of Sector 5 is still classified, and not all of the shops and restaurants are currently known. There were 37 shops in the Main Street complex including those listed above, as well as 20 restaurants (12 sit-down restaurants and 8 cafés) including those listed above. Between 2014 and 2015, several new shops and restaurants opened; in 2014, there were 26 shops and 12 restaurants on Main Street.

Jurassic World was accessible in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

In general, Jurassic World can be described as following a “touchscreen-future” aesthetic, with the architecture on its major buildings focusing on transparent panels of polymer or glass, sleek metallic siding, and crisp geometric shapes. This is a dramatic contrast to the “jungle safari” aesthetic of the old Jurassic Park, and was probably intended to present Jurassic World as a park of the corporate and capitalist future. Buildings, vehicles, and devices alike were all cast in overwhelming blue, silver, and white, the colors that most strongly represent technology in Western culture. Rather than present itself as an exotic locale with wild nature just barely restrained, Jurassic World was built to look like a universally accessible and commercially safe future with the corporation and its technology as the centerpiece, rather than the animals themselves. In this way, it appealed to the lowest common denominator as a means of maximizing its profits, creating a generic vision of the future meant to appeal at least slightly to the majority of people. While this sacrificed the possibility of a more specific motif (and thus more defined fan base) for Jurassic World, it was the most commercially viable option.

Some park facilities were not constructed at the time the park closed in 2015. These included many attractions in the planning phases, such as the Indominus attraction (scheduled to be completed in May 2015) which was scheduled to open in January 2016, and the Treetop Gazers attraction which was meant to open in 2018 and had not yet come under construction.

History
Conception

Jurassic World was not the first attempt by InGen to resurrect Jurassic Park. Following the 1993 disaster which ended the original Jurassic Park project, InGen considered retrieving animals from their research facility on Isla Sorna to try again. This movement was opposed by CEO John Hammond, who experienced a change in philosophy between 1993 and 1997 that saw him abandon capitalism in favor of preserving nature (including nature which they had altered through de-extinction). It was not until an incident in late 1996 allowed InGen to depose Hammond as CEO that they were able to put their plan into action; Jurassic Park’s original San Diego location was prepared to be opened. Activists working for Hammond intentionally sabotaged this attempt, leading to the death of Hammond’s replacement Peter Ludlow and sending InGen into further financial crisis.

Despite the troubles InGen was facing after 1993, chief geneticist Dr. Henry Wu continued the research he had begun on Isla Nublar. By May of 1997, he had succeeded in creating a hybrid genus and species of flowering plant and presented it to the International Society of Geneticists. This caught the attention of Simon Masrani, CEO of Masrani Global Corporation and the son of Hammond’s close friend Sanjay Masrani. Though the San Diego incident occurred shortly after the “Wu flower” was named, Masrani maintained his interest in acquiring InGen. Before his death, Hammond assisted InGen and the United States government create the Ethical Negligence in Paleo-Genetic Resurrection (ENPGR) Bill, better known as the Gene Guard Act, which prevented InGen from performing de-extinction any longer and obligated them to provide for the life forms they had already created. Hammond himself passed away after helping with the creation of this bill, with Simon Masrani as one of the last people to see him alive. According to Masrani’s testimony, Hammond wished for Masrani to take the helm of InGen and resurrect Jurassic Park, but Hammond’s exact words were not recorded and his true intentions remain speculative.

Nonetheless, Masrani Global Corporation entered into a fierce bidding war for InGen and its assets against rival companies such as Tatsuo Technology. In 1998, the bidding was was complete with Masrani Global Corporation the winner.

1998-1999: Early R&D, amalgam testing

Within one hundred days of the InGen-Masrani merger, which occurred in 1998, InGen resumed activity on Isla Sorna in violation of the Gene Guard Act. It is unknown to what degree Simon Masrani was aware of this activity, but archived records recovered from the Masrani Global Corporation website backdoor appears to implicate Dr. Henry Wu. Research performed over the next nine months introduced many new animals to the island, including at least four species that had not previously existed on the island. These results were filed under “Early R&D for Jurassic Park’s second incarnation,” confirming that InGen’s intent to resurrect Jurassic Park did not abate following the debacle in San Diego. Results were also filed under “Amalgam Testing,” which suggests Dr. Wu had continued his research into genetic hybridization between different genera.

Planning for the new park did take place in official capacity in 1998, and Simon Masrani brought in experts from all aspects of Masrani Global Corporation to take part. This does suggest that he may have been aware of the illegal research occurring at the time, though no definite proof has been recovered. In 1999, the research on Isla Sorna was abandoned due to fear of discovery. Later that year, the United Nations granted Masrani Global Corporation legal access to Isla Sorna; Simon Masrani himself visited the island to witness its animals, which affirmed his desire to build a new park. By mid-October of the same year, he had settled on the name “Jurassic World,” which was approved by other administrators in the company.

2000-2003: Early stages

In December of 2000, Henry Wu was promoted to the top of InGen’s genetics division and was officially brought on board the Jurassic World project. Though the Gene Guard Act was still in place, Dr. Wu was able to continue research legally due to Masrani Global Corporation having limited access to Isla Sorna. Earlier that year, InGen researchers had made a breakthrough in iron analysis, using new techniques to discover viable ancient DNA (or aDNA) in fossilized animal remains. This meant that amber was no longer the sole source of aDNA.

The public was unaware of InGen’s renewed activity at the time, but had not lost interest in de-extinction by any means. Illegal attempts to view Isla Sorna were far from unknown, despite regular patrols by the United Nations. In May of 2001, one such tour resulted in two American civilians becoming stranded on the island; website design entrepreneur Ben Hildebrand died of his injuries shortly after crashing in Isla Sorna’s western forests, leaving a young boy named Eric Kirby the only survivor. The U.S. and Costa Rican governments, as well as Masrani Global Corporation, made no effort to search for survivors and presumed them both dead. Eight weeks after the initial crash, the boy’s parents misled experts including Jurassic Park veteran Dr. Alan Grant into illegally penetrating into the island to retrieve Eric, which was successful. This incident threatened to expose InGen’s violations of the Gene Guard Act, which had left evidence in the form of animals that had not previously existed on Isla Sorna. The survivors’ testimonies, therefore, were mostly buried; almost no references to the illegal species reached the public.

The 2001 incident also released three genetically-modified Pteranodons from where they had been contained until that point. The reptiles migrated thousands of miles north before being captured and neutralized in Victoria, B.C. by American security contractor Vic Hoskins. Simon Masrani was impressed with Hoskins’s professional handling of the incident and offered him a position as head of InGen Security, which Hoskins accepted.

With both new and old faces moving up the ranks at InGen and an information security crisis averted, Jurassic World’s planning was well underway. In 2002, Simon Masrani finally revealed to the public his vision for Jurassic World via a lengthy and complex viral marketing campaign, then made official in a brief press conference with an opening date scheduled for the summer of May 30, 2005 (originally planned for the summer of 2004). In early April, Hoskins landed on Isla Nublar with InGen Security and began rounding up the handful of surviving dinosaurs. Meanwhile, Masrani Global Corporation founded Timack Construction in order to help build the park. On April 19, the island’s only Tyrannosaurus was recaptured and contained. While this animal was kept on Isla Nublar during construction, many of the survivors were temporarily relocated to Isla Sorna, which further added to that island’s overpopulation problem.

Throughout 2002, Masrani Global subsidiaries Timack Construction and Axis Boulder Engineering worked to build the park’s infrastructure and future attractions. A survey of the island was  underway by October, and the island was divided into six zone sectors: Sector 1 in the south, Sector 2 in the west, Sector 3 in the south central valley, Sector 4 in the northwest and center (itself divided into subsectors A, B, and C), Sector 5 in the north, and Sector 6 in the east. Many of the original Park’s buildings and structures were taken down, and new construction materials worth $1.2 billion ($1.7 billion in 2019, adjusting for inflation) were brought to the island. However, some features were left intact. Parts of the old tyrannosaur paddock, for example, were left mostly untouched, and the old Visitors’ Centre was planned to be used as a museum about the history of Jurassic Park and de-extinction. The plans for the Visitors’ Centre were ultimately abandoned, as Masrani Global opted to distance itself from anything related to Jurassic Park’s past. Other features, such as the maintenance tunnel network and radio bunkers, were reused. The old North Dock was repurposed as the new East Dock.

In March of 2003, a representative from Masrani Global Corporation (whose name has been omitted from official records) approached the U.S. House Committee on Science with a proposal to water down the restrictions imposed by the Gene Guard Act. The argument was that allowing more work into genetic research, including genetic engineering and cloning, would result in medical breakthroughs which would benefit humans, de-extinct life, and other animals. In order to ensure that the proposal was accepted, InGen bribed government officials to win their favor. The movement was passed, and InGen was permitted to resume de-extinction research.

With this obstacle out of the way, preparation for Jurassic World could pick up the pace. Now, Dr. Wu would be able to engineer new species; a list of desired species was prepared, including both animals that had never been cloned and new versions of already-cloned animals. He also was able to improve his gene splicing techniques with new technology, which also enabled him to further his research into hybridization.

Despite all these advances, Jurassic World would not be ready to open by the summer of 2004 as originally planned. Masrani and InGen were now under pressure to meet that date as well as keep information about the park guarded. Already, illegal drone footage had leaked showing the park’s main entrance gates, constructed with wood from the original Park. To protect the park and its assets, InGen Security established the Asset Containment Unit (ACU), which would mostly deal with security at the areas where humans and de-extinct animals could interact.

2004: Disease, internships, and cover-ups

With a year left until their promised opening date, Simon Masrani increased efforts to ensure that Jurassic World was prepared for visitors. Much of the infrastructure was constructed already, including an island-spanning monorail system, a three-million-gallon artificial lagoon, and a hotel complex. The park’s main edutainment building, the Innovation Center, was already mostly complete and had been sponsored by Samsung; other companies, such as Starbucks, had also gotten a foothold on the island already.

Not all was going smoothly, though. The Pteranodons were causing problems, for instance, by using their beaks to shatter the materials used to build the Aviary, so they could not be integrated into the park just yet. By September of that year, the pterosaurs still remained on Isla Sorna. The company’s scientists worked on numerous projects to solve Jurassic World’s many problems, including the development of a transparent polymer that would be resistant to pterosaur attacks and contain the animals efficiently. A calcium-boosting supplement was added to Isla Nublar’s water sources to ensure the dinosaurs’ teeth and bones would be healthy; by now, years of paleoveterinary research had enabled InGen to take better care of their animals’ health.

In early January, two of the original Park’s brachiosaurs, named Olive and Agnes, were transported back from Isla Sorna. They were introduced to the island’s central valley, which was planned to house several attractions including the unique Gyrosphere ride. On January 15, a group of interns arrived on the island to assist with monitoring the animals as they returned from Isla Sorna and help InGen develop new solutions to their problems.

At that point, the brachiosaurs were the only newcomers to the island; the Tyrannosaurus still remained in an enclosure designated Paddock 9, while the Dilophosaurus were contained in the north of the island and the Compsognathus roamed around much of the paddock areas. Other herbivores would be introduced later in the year. Already, scientists had noted an alarming population drop on Isla Sorna, which they attributed to either disease, behavioral problems, and poaching. Overpopulation was not given as much thought, as InGen’s illegal activities in the late 1990s were still unknown to the public. To resolve the population crisis, Simon Masrani planned to relocate all of Isla Sorna’s survivors to Isla Nublar where their health could be better tended to.

Unfortunately, the health of the newcomers was cause for alarm as well. The brachiosaur Olive developed an esophageal abscess after reintroduction, which was noticed by the animal handlers and interns on February 2. Staff prepared for surgery, fearing that it was a tumor. The surgery was carried out successfully on February 3, but the other brachiosaur, Agnes, was found to have a similar abscess developing. This one was small enough that surgery was not necessary, and it was treated with antibiotics.

One of the interns, a science student named Isobel James, had closely monitored the health issues of the brachiosaurs and suspected that an unknown environmental factor had caused the abscesses. Her attempts at investigation were strongly discouraged by InGen Security, who were still keeping much of the park a closely guarded secret. Thus, she conducted her investigation without their knowledge, keeping her findings to herself until the time was right. On March 1, ACU test-drove the first gyrospheres in the central valley; James took advantage of this to test various flora for toxicity. Among her samples, she found that a species of cyanobacteria found in a particular watering hole of Sector 4c had astronomically high acidity and reasoned that this was the cause of the abscesses.

Before she was comfortable with relaying this information to her distrustful superiors, a severe storm struck Isla Nublar on March 5. The entire island was evacuated, including all of the interns; during the storm, an overloaded fuse box blew out and started a fire on Olive’s quarantine pen. James stayed behind to manually open the gates and free the imperiled dinosaur, but died in a car crash while rushing back to the dock to evacuate. There is some evidence that the crash may not have been an accident and that James was being investigated herself by an unknown party.

Simon Masrani was presented with a quandary: if he opened up a legal investigation into James’s death, construction on Jurassic World would slow down and it would likely miss its planned opening date. He opted to pay off James’s family for their silence, believing that James would not have wanted a public relations disaster to befall the park. The internship program was ended prematurely, and a new program called Bright Minds was opened to take its place. Beverly Jamison was tasked with overseeing the program.

In the spring, a herd of Triceratops were transported from Isla Sorna to Isla Nublar to integrate into the central valley. They began developing the same abscesses that the brachiosaurs had exhibited, but none developed to the point of being life-threatening before antibiotic treatment resolved the issue. From that point onward, InGen began treating all new animals with an antibiotic-steroid combination to prevent the abscesses from developing. The cause was still unknown, as James’s journal remained hidden; even Dr. Wu had not determined what was causing the abscesses and was more concerned with preventing them. Other departments continued solving the park’s many issues; on June 8, Mascom’s James McClure isolated an anomaly in the park system and resolved it. Vic Hoskins would often be brought in to give security insight on these kinds of issues.

The Bright Minds internship program commenced in August, with twelve college students selected to participate. By the time they had arrived on the island, two more new species had been integrated into the valley, Parasaurolophus and Gallimimus. In addition, the eggs of multiple species had been obtained, and six juvenile Ankylosaurus were growing in the hatchery. InGen Security was still highly suspicious of any outsiders on Isla Nublar; the design of the gyrosphere had leaked online, the culprit unknown. Rival companies sought to obtain InGen’s designs, suggesting the threat of corporate espionage.

Jurassic World had eight species ready for exhibition by August, but more were in the works. In the genetics lab, Dr. Wu was attempting to perfect a new version of Baryonyx, which had been cloned during the Jurassic Park years; he had also succeeded in creating a new subspecies of Pteranodon longiceps, the first such success. At the time, he was also working on creating a Mosasaurus based on aDNA obtained through iron analysis of fossil remains, but adapting the animal’s physiology to a shallow-water tropical environment presented a challenge. The Bright Minds interns were seen as an irritation by Dr. Wu, as they frequently interrupted his work as a part of the internship program, but he ultimately selected the three he considered most promising to oversee the health of the Pteranodon eggs.

Easily among the most promising interns was a nineteen-year-old political science student named Claire Dearing, who intended to work in government for environmental social justice and other humanitarian causes. She was among the interns selected to assist Dr. Wu with his pterosaur embryos, and also played a major role in developing a remedial behavioral program for the youngest brachiosaur (an individual named Pearl). Dearing gained special attention from Simon Masrani for her determination and resourcefulness when presented with problems. Unbeknownst to anyone else, Dearing was staying in the same hotel room that James had used months prior and had discovered James’s journal; she resumed James’s investigation into the health crisis in the valley.

In September, plans to transport the carnivores of Isla Sorna were finalized. The Velociraptors were among the most major concerns; their high collective intelligence meant that they were at risk of organizing during transport and causing unpredictable security risks. The first animal to be transported was an adult female, which was placed in the quarantine paddock as per protocol and would be introduced into its Sector 5 habitat after a period of time. Other raptors would be added one at a time. InGen Security had already concieved an early form of the I.B.R.I.S. Project, which sought to study the raptors’ intelligence for various reasons; this project was highly classified at the time and only certain InGen employees were privy to its details.

Throughout the Bright Minds program, there were hints of corporate espionage occurring, though no proof could be found. Dearing, working with another intern named Justin Hendricks, discovered that two of their fellow interns (Eric and Tanya Skye) were responsible, having stolen medical supplies from InGen’s laboratories for rival corporation Mosby Health in exchange for their younger sister Victory’s medical treatments. Dearing and Hendricks discovered the Skyes attempting to extract materials from the quarantine paddock, presumably in relation to the newly-arrived Velociraptor; the animal was accidentally released and it fatally wounded Hendricks in the ensuing chaos. It was otherwise contained without further loss of life.

Due to the incident, the Skye twins were removed from the island and the raptor was euthanized. Dearing confronted Simon Masrani about the events in the quarantine paddock and revealed that she knew about Isobel James; Masrani gave her more information about James’s death and implied that Hendricks’s death would similarly be covered up. Dearing requested that the Victory Skye’s medical trial be covered to completion by Masrani Global Corporation, since the FDA was shutting down the trial and bringing Mosby Health under investigation. She also requested that Victory’s future education be funded in full. Masrani, knowing that Dearing possessed threatening information about James, agreed to all her requests. He also, in good faith, offered her the opportunity to stay on Isla Nublar rather than return to university and to start a paid job once the park opened to the public. Dearing accepted his offer, and also revealed to Dr. Wu the cause of the dinosaurs’ abscesses. This earned her Wu’s sincere respect, as she had researched a solution to a problem that had stumped him.

In November, ticket sales for Jurassic World were put online in small batches. Lotteries were also held, the prizes being all-expenses-paid trips to the park; these measures were intended to prevent ticket scalping.

2005-2007: Opening years

Jurassic World opened its gates to the public on May 30, 2005 with construction completed on schedule. Eight species were on exhibit at the time it opened, with others kept in Sector 5 for future use. In the meantime, Dr. Wu was still engineering entirely new species along with newer versions of animals they already had. In the park’s first month of operation, it saw a total of 98,120 visitors. In the first year, it saw eight million visitors from ninety countries.

Simon Masrani sought to protect Isla Nublar in ways that Jurassic Park had failed to do. An agreement was made with the Costa Rican Environmental Protection Society to ensure the safety of the island’s native wildlife, and the Tun-Si tribe was welcomed back to their home. An area of the island was set aside for them to return to their traditional lifestyle.

Claire Dearing continued to rise up the ranks at InGen, and by 2007 she had become the park’s Senior Assets Manager. With Masrani frequently traveling to visit his company’s other operations around the world, Dearing was in charge of day-to-day running of the park. By all accounts, operations were immensely successful for the park’s first few years. By the following year, Dearing would be living on the island full-time; the park had attained many new attractions by this point, including a Mosasaurus which inhabited the Lagoon.

2008-2015: Stagnation and new projects

Popular interest in de-extinction remained high in the general public, but it did lose its novelty over time. By the late 2000s, people had begun to view de-extinct life as exotic but otherwise mundane, and every few years Jurassic World introduced new species or other attractions to reinvigorate the public’s interest and keep guest numbers rising. On April 4, 2008, Masrani Global Corporation’s Board of Directors unanimously agreed in a meeting with Simon Masrani that Jurassic World would need an unprecedented new attraction in order to keep investors impressed and guests coming to the park in droves. Masrani and Dearing authorized Dr. Wu to engineer whatever he saw fit to fulfill this purpose, and Dr. Wu and his team began working on a new animal hybrid species.

Masrani was pleased with Dr. Wu’s concept for the new animal; a June 6, 2009 email sent by Masrani made it clear that Wu’s vision would shape the future of genetics. An animal hybrid was once said to have hatched on April 9, 2009, though references to this have since been scrubbed from the Masrani Global backdoor terminal; it may have referred to Scorpios rex, a genus and species of hybrid theropod created from Dr. Wu’s Experiment E750. However, within a few months, this species was deemed unfit for park use and Simon Masrani demanded its destruction. Wu did not comply, keeping the animal alive in cryonic stasis for further research. Work on the park continued over the next few years; more animals were hatched, including brand-new species. Some of these were successfully integrated into the park, while others were maintained in Sector 5 for future use. By 2010 or 2011, Benjamin Lockwood was involved with Jurassic World to some degree despite his falling-out with John Hammond in the 1990s. Lockwood’s aide Eli Mills acted as his correspondent with Claire Dearing.

Both Eli Mills and Vic Hoskins became involved with financing Dr. Wu’s hybrid project, the species now named Indominus rex. Hoskins had recognized the fact that Jurassic World’s operating costs were continuously rising while revenues remained the same, and he predicted the park’s eventual failure. As of such, Hoskins made plans to develop InGen (particularly the Security Division) in new directions. He made a deal with Dr. Wu to ensure that Wu’s research would still be funded if Wu engineered the Indominus as a combat-oriented animal. Funding for this military bioengineering project was provided by Mills, who considered it an investment as he realized the monetary value of an animal engineered specifically for combat.

In 2012, Hoskins began overseeing a new project called the Integrated Behavioral Raptor Intelligence Study (I.B.R.I.S.), which also had potential military applications. Simon Masrani approved of the project under the impression that it was intended to determine how best to integrate Velociraptors into a park setting safely and humanely. Former U.S. Navy animal trainer Owen Grady was hired to work the I.B.R.I.S. project. The raptors already in InGen custody proved unpredictable and aggressive toward their handlers and were rejected by the program; Dr. Wu engineered a new breed of raptor for I.B.R.I.S. which Grady was tasked with raising. Four raptors of this new breed survived, the eldest hatching by May 15. 2012 also saw the successful hatching of two Indominus rex, which were still classified. At around the same time, Dr. Katie Walker conducted research on Troodon intelligence using new advances in animal communication techniques.

Dearing continued to gain authority in the park. By 2015, she is known to have become the Operations Manager, one of InGen’s highest-ranking administrators and second only to Simon Masrani and the Board of Directors.

By May 17 of 2013, Grady realized that the raptor pride’s dynamic was more complicated than he or InGen Security had initially assumed. He requested to Hoskins that his friend from Paris, Barry Sembène, be recruited into I.B.R.I.S., which Hoskins permitted. That same year, Hoskins began working on an application to bring the I.B.R.I.S. raptors further under InGen Security control, realizing their potential as military animals was all he had expected and more.

Visitor numbers gradually declined in the 2010s. Park capacity was 30,000 people, while in reality it saw an average of 22,000 guests per day (peaking during the American winter and summer school vacations). By comparison, Walt Disney World (the most visited theme park in the world) saw an average of 52,964 visitors per day in 2014, with attendance similarly higher during times of year when students were on vacation. Meanwhile, the park’s expenses continued to increase. The animal population as of 2014 consumed fifteen tons of food per day.

Simon Masrani was unable to visit Isla Nublar at all between 2012 and most of 2015. On Christmas Eve of 2014, he informed Jurassic World’s administrative body that he would be unable to reach the island for the next six months due to operations in China at the time; while he planned to arrive in May or early June of 2015, he would not actually arrive until December. In the meantime, he continued updating his corporate blog on the company website, including revealing the existence of the Indominus to a limited audience in January along with a $225-million boost to InGen Security to be distributed over the course of the next three years. At the end of the month, Mascom engineers installed new scanning hardware in Sector 5, presumably for the Indominus. With the new theropod revealed, ticket sales to Jurassic World spiked, even though most of the public knew little about it so far.

Jurassic World also introduced Camp Cretaceous, an adventure camp that would take place around the American holidays; when complete, it would house over five hundred young campers and staff one hundred fifty counselors. In 2015, though, it would only have two counselors (head counselor Roxie and her assistant Dave) and hold six campers. Five were pre-selected, while a lottery was held for one more: a virtual reality video game set on Isla Sorna was distributed with an all-expenses-paid Camp Cretaceous stay as the prize for the first winner. The first person to win the game, and therefore the sixth camper, was Darius Bowman. The other five campers included Kenji Kon (the son of one of Jurassic World’s major investors), Sammy Gutierrez (the daughter of Jurassic World’s primary beef supplier), Ben Pincus (the son of a prominent Masrani Global member), Brooklynn (a popular teenage vlogger), and Yasmina Fadoula (a star track athlete sponsored by Jurassic World). They were scheduled to arrive December 19, during the American winter holiday.

Only one of the Indominus was still alive at this point. The other had been killed and cannibalized sometime before. Its exhibition paddock was planned to be complete in May, but was not scheduled to open to the public until January 2016 due to multiple delays. The hybrid’s behavior was unpredictable, and its handlers felt unsafe working with it; one nearly lost an arm during feeding time. Paddock 11, which housed the animal, underwent further construction; the forty-foot walls were deemed not high enough to safely contain it and were built higher throughout 2015. It was now fed with a crane rather than by hand due to safety concerns, leaving the animal without any form of direct contact with its caretakers.

The I.B.R.I.S. project, too, saw its difficulties. The dominant raptor, Blue, had begun to challenge Grady’s authority, and the raptors sometimes made escape attempts. At least one handler had been mauled by a raptor and was left unable to work. While the raptors were successfully taught a number of commands, their obedience levels still left much to be desired; during hunting tests, they rarely obeyed Grady’s order to stop and would usually kill the target animal after he had ordered them not to. Nonetheless, Hoskins remained hopeful that the project would succeed.

2015-2018: Closure and abandonment

On December 22, 2015, Simon Masrani finally visited Jurassic World to see the Indominus. As the security concerns were brought to his attention, he requested that Grady inspect the paddock to ensure it was secure. During the inspection, a series of mistakes on the part of both Grady and Dearing resulted in the Indominus breaching containment.

As the animal’s true nature was known only to Hoskins and Wu, attempts to subdue it by park security staff were unsuccessful and resulted in numerous fatalities. Some amount of the truth about the creature was eventually relayed to Masrani by Dr. Wu, though reluctantly; Masrani vowed to shut down Wu’s research and have him apprehended for crimes against nature. Despite not having a valid pilot’s license, Masrani took matters into his own hands by attempting to gun down the escaped animal via helicopter; the ensuing crash caused Masrani’s death and released hundreds of pterosaurs from the park’s Aviary. The reptiles flocked to the Lagoon, where they caused injury and death to many park guests and staff members. ACU was able to get the situation under control and keep the rest of the guests safe from further harm, but the Indominus was still at large.

With Masrani’s death leaving a gap in leadership, Hoskins immediately took charge and commandeered the Control Room with InGen Security personnel. He also commandeered I.B.R.I.S., intending to test the combat abilities of both the raptors and the Indominus; this ended disastrously with the raptors finally rejecting Grady’s authority and making a bid for freedom alongside the hybrid animal. The resulting bloodshed cost the lives of many InGen Security members; Hoskins and Wu began preparing to evacuate the island and keep their work away from legal investigation. Hoskins died during the evacuation attempt, though Wu safely left the island to shelter with Mills and continue his work. While the raptors eventually turned away from the Indominus and began to recognize Grady as an authority figure again, Blue was ultimately the only raptor to survive the conflict. Dearing, in a state of desperation, gave the order to open Paddock 9 and lured the park’s oldest Tyrannosaurus onto Main Street in the hopes that it would kill the Indominus. The tyrannosaur, accompanied by an enraged Blue, drove the hybrid animal to the edge of the Lagoon where the mosasaur ambushed and killed the creature, ending the conflict. Guests were evacuated by the end of the night, and the harbor cargo bay was sealed shut. The members of Camp Cretaceous were lost in the chaos of the evacuation and marooned on Isla Nublar for six months, but in the eyes of the wider world, the problems on the island were over.

However, Jurassic World would never be able to recover from an incident of this magnitude. It had suffered the loss of many animal assets, as well as a dozen Security personnel including Vic Hoskins himself. It had also lost Simon Masrani, leaving Masrani Global Corporation in disarray. Henry Wu was also missing, having been transported to hide at the Lockwood estate while under investigation by the U.S. government for bioethical misconduct. Dearing and Grady left the company following the incident, and a class-action lawsuit ensured that the park would never reopen. The bad press was mostly tied to the pterosaur attack, which had caused the most harm to visitors.

Jurassic World sat mostly abandoned for the next three years, but a number of incidents occurred. The members of Camp Cretaceous were witness to several of these; the first was a poaching intrusion in January 2016. While the island was under UN quarantine, a married couple of exotic animal poachers landed by yacht on Isla Nublar, ultimately being responsible for the trophy killings of at least two dinosaurs (a Sinoceratops and a Baryonyx). Their party did not survive, however. The containment unit for E750 was accidentally deactivated, thawing the hybrid animal which revived and began slaughtering the other animals of the island. Its presence became known to the Camp Cretaceous members in June, by which time it had reproduced; the campers were able to trap and kill at least one of the hybrids. Shortly after this, a team of mercenaries landed on Isla Nublar along with Dr. Wu to try and recover his research following a government raid on his laboratory facilities. One team obtained a sample of Indominus rib, but an effort to obtain the laptop with hybrid genome data on it failed with the destruction of the laptop. The operation also suffered heavy casualties. Wu and the surviving mercenaries evacuated, and the Camp Cretaceous members finally were able to escape using the poachers’ abandoned yacht. The mosasaur was unintentionally released from the island during the incident as well.

In March, another major incident had occurred, involving the return of the Troodon specimen Jeanie to the island and conflict between activists and InGen Security. This incident lasted about twenty-four hours and went unnoticed by the Camp Cretaceous members. Jeanie had been poached from Isla Nublar immediately after the closure of Jurassic World and used for I.B.R.I.S. research, but had laid eggs via parthenogenesis before her capture. Her former handlers returned her home, where she rejoined her young. InGen Security’s Kurt Reed had attempted to recapture her, but he and most of his staff died in this attempt, finally ending I.B.R.I.S. entirely. Another incident occurred in February 2018 in which mercenaries hired by Mills crashed on the island while trying to obtain data and specimens for Wu’s research. Like his 2016 operation, this was partly successful as he did gain the genomic data he needed.

The Costa Rican government continued to monitor the island until early 2018, when surveillance technology was largely withdrawn due to an impending volcanic eruption. This left the island open to poachers; a major poaching incident occurred in June 2018, when mercenaries employed by Mills under the guise of an illegal dinosaur-rescue operation landed on the island to retrieve specimens for the black market.

On June 23, 2018, Mount Sibo violently erupted after over a year of buildup. This eruption likely destroyed much of the remaining Jurassic World facilities and caused the extinction of many species living on the island, particularly in the north where the volcano is located. Volcanic activity has continued on the island since that time.

Cultural Significance

Between its opening day on May 30, 2005 and its closing on December 22, 2015, Jurassic World was one of the world’s most popular theme parks, seeing over twenty thousand visitors each day. Many of these visitors stayed for multiple days on the island. Thousands of people were also employed by Jurassic World, with internships and employment opportunities available both on- and off-site almost constantly. Of course, visiting Jurassic World was far from simple; tourists had to travel to Costa Rica first, then take a ferry over 120 miles of open ocean to reach Isla Nublar. The expenses of this trip prohibited many people from being able to visit the park.

Jurassic World was also a boon to many companies. Some, such as Samsung and Verizon Wireless, sponsored attractions in the park. Others were able to establish shops and restaurants in the Main Street area, often localizing these with a Jurassic World theme. Countless more investors held stock in Masrani Global Corporation and InGen.

Satellite map of Jurassic World (12/18/2015) as displayed with standard-level Operations security clearance

Simon Masrani’s desire for Jurassic World was to teach people humility before nature, as well as to foster an appreciation for the natural world and a sense of curiosity about science. Jurassic World stood not only to entertain, but also to educate. Most of the attractions served to teach information about dinosaurs, genetics, paleontology, or other fields of science. The Innovation Center and Hammond Creation Lab were among the most educational attractions, giving visitors insight into the process of de-extinction. Masrani also intended to make reparations to the Tun-Si tribe, ensuring that their contribution to Isla Nublar’s history was respected.

Unprecedented scientific research took place at Jurassic World, much of it championed by InGen geneticist Dr. Henry Wu. While the crux of his research at the park was the creation of the hybrid species Indominus rex, his other work cannot be overstated. By the time the park closed, InGen had compiled the largest genetic library in the world, with new species discovered every day (often before traditional paleontologists discovered them). Genetic science opened new fields of medicine, both for humans and other species. The field of neopaleontology was advanced by leaps and bounds through genetic research and de-extinction; within it, fields of science such as paleohorticulture and paleoveterinary science were created and expanded. Animal behavior as applied to many de-extinct species also underwent many breakthroughts, particularly the theropods studied in the I.B.R.I.S. project; much of our modern understanding of Velociraptor antirrhopus behavior and intelligence comes from this study.

Not all the impacts of Jurassic World were positive. Paleontology underwent radical change due to the research being done; traditional paleontological methods fell by the wayside as de-extinction replaced the study of fossils and paleogenetics made many aspects of paleontological research obsolete. According to Dearing in 2015, paleogenetics had made more research breakthroughs during the time Jurassic World had been open than traditional paleontology had made in the past one hundred years. While the park did employ researchers such as Dr. Brian Switek to explain paleontological science to visitors, these developing sciences still ensured that the field would never be the same as it once was. Other researchers accused Jurassic World of spreading scientific misconceptions, such as the lack of feathers on their animals, which was the result of gene splicing difficulties and not representative of the dinosaurs’ true appearances.

Beyond scientific criticism, Jurassic World has more recently been the target of animal activism. While during the park’s operation it did not experience significant protests (likely due to its remote location and tight security), since its closure organizations such as the Dinosaur Protection Group have accused it of exploiting its de-extinct creatures and housing them in insufficient conditions.

De-extinction skeptics, naturally, have had their commentary as well. Since the San Diego incident in 1997, certain political groups have claimed that de-extinct species cannot and should not be allowed to coexist with modern species. Some, such as Extinction Now!, go so far as to advocate for the death of all genetically modified organisms in an extreme form of Neo-Luddism. Other scientists such as Dr. Ian Malcolm and wildlife activists such as Ozwald Brook simply believe that de-extinct life should be left to fend for itself as natural selection takes its course.

Ultimately, the work performed at Jurassic World has had an irreversible and profound effect on our global society. Scientific research has progressed at an incredible pace under Dr. Wu and other InGen scientists, leading to new understandings of biology, genetics, and evolution. We know more now about the natural world than ever before. At the same time, the events occurring at and in relation to Jurassic World have changed aspects of society in controversial ways. New frontiers have opened up, for better and for worse rather than one or the other. It is unlikely that all the societal ramifications of Jurassic World have been felt yet, and more are sure to come in the future.

Ecological Significance

Like Jurassic Park before it, Jurassic World radically altered Isla Nublar’s ecosystem and most likely contributed to the endangerment of its endemic life forms. While Simon Masrani held strongly environmentalist beliefs and sought to preserve as much nature on Isla Nublar as possible, the nature of Jurassic World as an ever-expanding business venture meant that it was constantly pressing up against the boundaries of the wilderness. Some of the features of Jurassic World caused massive alterations to the landscape itself, such as the three-million-gallon Lagoon which was excavated in the middle of the island. This attracted gulls farther inland than usual and provided habitat for marine life that otherwise would never have existed there.

Significant amounts of Isla Nublar were still left untouched, however. Much of Sectors 1, 2, 5, and 6 were left as the native cloud forest originally found there, though dinosaurs were allowed to roam through some of this. Sectors 3 and 4 were largely altered by human activity, being the sites of tourist attractions and dinosaur habitats. The dinosaurs themselves were constrained by fewer physical barriers and more invisible fence technology, which ensured that they were unlikely to venture out of their designated zones but allowed native wildlife to wander into these animals’ habitats. Some wildlife, such as small birds, benefitted from the presence of large herbivorous dinosaurs to protect them from native predators, but other wildlife was displaced by the new habitats created on the island.

Finally, the biology of some organisms was actually altered by InGen. In 2004, when the dinosaurs were being reintroduced to the central valley, InGen added a calcium-boosting substance to the water in order ensure that the dinosaurs’ osteological and dental health was provided for. This substance interacted with igneous rock naturally found on the island to produce a mutagenic compound which affected indigenous cyanobacteria in one of the valley’s water sources. The mutated cyanobacteria became incredibly acidic, causing harm to animals that ingested them.

Once Jurassic World closed, the de-extinct animals were able to freely roam about the island and native wildlife was further harmed. Due to the political situation surrounding de-extinction, native animals and plants gained no protection from humans during the Mount Sibo crisis in 2017-2018; by the time of the eruption, native animal populations had visibly declined. Bird calls were still heard on the island on June 23, but none were seen directly. With native species already in decline due to the presence of so many de-extinct species, it is highly likely that the damage done to the populations of endemic modern creatures was even greater than it would have been had the island been left in its natural state.