Peter Ludlow was a British businessman known for his career with International Genetic Technologies, Inc., a company founded by his maternal uncle John Parker Hammond. Prior to 1997, he served as the company’s Chairman of the Board of Directors. He served as the company’s CEO from May 26, 1997 until his death on May 30, 1997.
Ludlow’s death was the end result of the 1997 San Diego incident, which Ludlow himself was primarily responsible for. He died due to an animal attack while attempting to regain control of said animals for the up-and-coming attraction Jurassic Park: San Diego.
Name
The given name Peter originates from the Greek name Petros, meaning “rock;” it is a common masculine name in Christian families and traditionally symbolizes strength. The surname Ludlow is an English habitational name: it comes from a combination of “Hlude” (an Old English name for the Teme River) and “hlaw” (meaning “hill”). The name references a location in the market town of Shropshire.
Biography
Early life
Peter Ludlow’s date of birth is not known, but he was described as “fortyish” in one script for The Lost World: Jurassic Park. If he was about forty in 1997, this would place his year of birth in approximately 1957.
Ludlow’s mother was the sister of John Hammond, and consequently Hammond was Ludlow’s maternal uncle. The Hammond family was originally from Scotland, while the Ludlow name is an old English one; he was most likely born in the United Kingdom.
He was wearing a wedding band at the time of his death in 1997, suggesting that he had married sometime before then.
Career at InGen
In 1975, when Ludlow would have been approaching twenty years old, his uncle John Hammond and business partner Sir Benjamin Lockwood founded International Genetic Technologies out of San Diego, California in the United States of America. Ludlow came to work for his uncle at InGen, though most of the details of his employment remain unknown; as of 1982 he was still a lower-level employee working at the InGen waterfront complex in San Diego.
He was privy to the Jurassic Park project, Hammond’s long-term goal to create a de-extinction theme park. The Park was to be built on InGen property in San Diego, consisting of a huge amphitheater and animal paddocks.
InGen also leased the Muertes Archipelago from the Costa Rican government in 1982, planning to use its largest island Isla Sorna as a secluded research facility termed Site B. Construction began on Jurassic Park in 1983, and then in 1984, InGen scientists completed the first test-fertilization of an artificial ovum at the Lockwood estate‘s private laboratory. A year after this, in 1985, InGen’s Dr. Laura Sorkin proved that viable ancient DNA could be extracted from Mesozoic-aged amber inclusions.
Jurassic Park did not come cheap, and became even more costly by the end of 1985 when Hammond decided to relocate it to the island of Isla Nublar, owned by Costa Rica just like Isla Sorna and similarly isolated. Negotiations with the Costa Rican government ended up increasing the price of the loan, with a local Tun-Si awa being brought in to describe the island’s bountiful resources and natural beauty to InGen. The project’s expenses only increased from then on, with the first dinosaur being brought back from extinction at Site B in 1986. InGen saved costs by hiring MIT geneticist Dr. Henry Wu that year. Wu demonstrated that by replacing decayed segments of dinosaurian genome with compatible sequences from present-day organisms, he could create new viable species significantly faster than Dr. Sorkin’s cross-referencing method. Wu also engineered the animals to be dependent on dietary lysine supplements provided by InGen, which reduced the risk of escaped animals becoming an issue. The first dinosaurs were transported to Jurassic Park from Site B in 1987 as construction on the second Park began.
There were also plans to build even more park locations throughout the world, to open once the first was complete and unveiled. Jurassic Park Europe was the most well-developed of these concepts, with a tract of land in the Azores already leased for it. Another park servicing Japan was planned and InGen had leased an island near Guam for this purpose. The next upcoming Jurassic Park was intended to be built on the mainland, in Beijing; negotiations with China for the property were underway in the early 1990s.
By 1993, Ludlow had become a high-ranking employee at InGen (possibly having become Chairman of the Board by now), though he did not work on the island itself. He spent his time at InGen’s waterfront complex in San Diego, suggesting that he had moved to the United States for business full-time by that point. According to Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis, Ludlow became InGen’s Financial Director by the early 2000s, responsible for tracking the company’s expenses and issuing quarterly reports. However, this did not come to pass in the film canon proper; nonetheless Ludlow may have been on track to become the Financial Director eventually.
Jurassic Park was plagued with problems, culminating with the Velociraptors in 1993. The most aggressive of the eight raptors introduced to the Park was involved in a series of violent fights that left all but two others dead, representing a significant financial loss for InGen. The survivors were instructed by their new leader to attack the electric fences at feeding times, never striking the same place twice, which Park warden Robert Muldoon believed was an effort to test the fences for weak points. At his suggestion, the raptors were relocated in early June while replacements were considered. While the raptors were being transported to a secure holding pen, a worker named Jophery Brown was attacked and mauled to death. His family sued InGen for US $20,000,000 when they learned about his death, and the Board of Directors put the Jurassic Park project on hold pending review. To make matters worse, Benjamin Lockwood had left the company by 1993, removing an important source of financial security for InGen.
Ludlow was probably involved with the investigation into Jurassic Park, which would have put him at odds with his uncle. Hammond did not want an investigation, believing it would slow down their progress. The Board, however, would not allow the Park to proceed until outside experts had toured the Park and given their endorsement. Without this, InGen’s investors would pull out of the project due to the safety concerns raised by the insurance underwriters. Legal professional Donald Gennaro, who worked with InGen’s insurance underwriters, was selected to represent InGen’s investors. American mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm was contacted by Gennaro as a part of the endorsement tour. The underwriters also recommended paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant and an unnamed geologist (whose invitation was revoked at Gennaro’s suggestion). Grant’s research had been funded by InGen, and he was also Hammond’s top choice to review the Park; on this point, at least, the Board and Hammond were in agreement.
1993 incident and fallout
On June 11, 1993, the endorsement tour (now also including Dr. Ellie Sattler, Grant’s colleague and romantic partner) arrived on Isla Nublar. Also on the tour were Ludlow’s own first cousins once removed, Lex and Tim Murphy, Hammond’s grandchildren. While the tour was commenced on time, it had to be recalled and postponed due to inclement weather. Contact with Isla Nublar was lost during the storm and was not reestablished until the morning of June 12.
When InGen heard from Hammond on June 12, they learned that some of the Park’s systems had been intentionally shut down by the chief programmer, Dennis T. Nedry, to cover an act of corporate espionage. During the events that followed, the Park’s Tyrannosaurus escaped confinement and caused havoc; an effort to resolve the sabotage temporarily shut down all power to the Park and inadvertently released the Velociraptors. Casualties occurred during the incident, including Gennaro, Muldoon, and chief engineer Ray Arnold. Nedry would later be confirmed to have died during the incident. In addition, Dr. Malcolm had been grievously injured, and chief veterinarian Dr. Gerry Harding was still in the Park along with his daughter and two other staff members, Dr. Sorkin and her assistant David Banks.
Hammond, his scientist guests, and his grandchildren were evacuated by helicopter while two mercenary teams were dispatched from Costa Rica to locate the other survivors. Plans were enacted to destroy Jurassic Park and its inhabitants via napalm bombing in Operation Clean Sweep, which would take place the following day. However, though Dr. Harding and his daughter were evacuated successfully, Banks died during the incident and Dr. Sorkin went rogue. She attempted to contact Ludlow as well as other high-ranking InGen members to protest the bombing of the island, threatening to release a Tylosaurus into the ocean if she was not heard; Sorkin was never patched through to Ludlow, though, and died during her attempt to protect the island. None of the mercenaries hired to save the survivors made it off Isla Nublar alive, and Operation Clean Sweep was postponed indefinitely. By the end of June 13, the incident was over, but the damage done to InGen was lasting.
Wrongful death lawsuits came in from the families of Gennaro, Muldoon, and Arnold, with InGen facing a total of US $72,100,000 in payouts. Damaged and lost equipment in Jurassic Park cost InGen a further $17,300,000, and the deconstruction of Isla Nublar’s facilities (though the napalm bombing was never carried out) added another $126,000,000. All together, InGen lost at least $215,400,000 due to the Isla Nublar incident before factoring in the subsequent media payoffs and cash settlements to keep the survivors’ and ex-employees’ silence. Ludlow, as well as the Board, began to seriously question Hammond’s leadership. Fortunately for InGen, all of the members of the tour group had signed nondisclosure agreements and were bound to silence, so while the company suffered a catastrophic loss that brought them to the brink of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, they could at least avoid further bad press. Even so, InGen’s stock dropped from 78.25% to 19% over the next four years.
Ludlow believed that the idea of Jurassic Park did not necessarily have to die, however. With the facility in San Diego mostly complete, he believed that by learning from the mistakes of Isla Nublar they could finish and reopen the Park and save InGen. Hammond vehemently opposed this, having had a change of philosophy due to the incident. No longer under the sway of capitalism, Hammond sought to protect the dinosaurs from exploitation; he ramped down activity on Isla Sorna, leaving it as a research facility only. With no new cloning and all breeding closely regulated, it was believed that the animals would live out their lives and eventually die natural deaths due to lysine deficiency.
The dinosaurs, though, did not die out as expected. In 1994, InGen quietly explored Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna to determine the status of the islands and investigate the incident of the previous year. It was learned that while Isla Nublar’s dinosaur populations had suffered and the Park was basically unrecoverable, Isla Sorna’s animals were flourishing in the wild. Operation Clean Sweep was officially cancelled for good. Ludlow saw this opportunity to capture dinosaurs for Jurassic Park: San Diego, but Hammond forbade InGen from putting this plan into action. Instead, Hammond again declared that Isla Sorna should remain untouched, a place where the dinosaurs could live out their lives without human interference. Ludlow, like most of InGen, was frustrated by Hammond’s growing environmentalism as it put the company’s bottom line in danger. The cleanup itself was not without problems; during the attempted deconstruction of Jurassic Park, some of the contracted Costa Rican workers were injured by dinosaurs and later moved to sue InGen. The Department of the Interior of Costa Rica represented the Costa Rican people in a class-action lawsuit for damages. InGen was ordered by the Superior Court of Costa Rica to award ten million dollars to the plaintiff pursuant to Penal Code Section 2933 on October 28, 1996, suggesting that the legal battle dragged on for almost two years.
Other threats to InGen may have arisen during this period of time. A deleted scene for The Lost World: Jurassic Park depicts a Parasaurolophus carcass being found in East Pacific waters by a Japanese fishing trawler, which would challenge InGen’s secrecy and be of concern to Ludlow.
Unfortunately, the Site B facility had to be abandoned as Hurricane Clarissa approached the island in 1995; with InGen suffering, it would not have had the resources to rebuild. Genetic samples, valuable equipment, and preserved embryos were evacuated by the facility’s staff, and the remaining captive dinosaurs were turned out into the wild where it was assumed the lysine contingency would eventually come into effect.
Protecting InGen
While Hammond’s changing views threatened the company financially, InGen faced a new crisis beginning in 1995. In a television interview, Dr. Ian Malcolm violated his nondisclosure agreement, publicly claiming that InGen had cloned dinosaurs on Isla Nublar and that he was a survivor of an incident that had been swept under the rug. This claim, of course, was true, but it sounded far-fetched. Still, it posed the risk of exposing InGen’s operations before the company was ready for the world to know, and Ludlow acted swiftly to counter Malcolm.
Ludlow fed information to reputable magazines and newspapers such as the Skeptical Inquirer and The Washington Post, claiming that Malcolm had been bribed to make wild accusations against InGen. Malcolm was quickly labeled a fraud, and Jurassic Park was considered a hoax; Malcolm was fired from his university and became a public laughingstock. Even with Malcolm largely discredited, InGen was still endangered by Hammond’s faltering leadership, and Ludlow began working on a secretive project: Operation End Run, a mission to embarrass and discredit Hammond to remove him as CEO.
The opportunity to put Operation End Run into action was presented to Ludlow on a sliver platter in the winter of 1996. In mid-December, a private yacht owned by Paul and Deirdre Bowman touring the Gulf of Fernandez landed on Isla Sorna; while it was anchored there, the family had a picnic on the beach and their young daughter Cathy was mauled by a group of Compsognathus. She was brought to a hospital in Costa Rica to recover from her injuries; in the meantime, the Bowmans learned that InGen owned Isla Sorna. They had probably heard Malcolm’s claims about cloned dinosaurs, and putting the two together, they chose to sue InGen.
Forty-eight hours after Cathy’s initial treatment at the hospital, Ludlow called a boardroom meeting to propose Corporate Resolution 213C: the culmination of Operation End Run, the removal of John Hammond from the position of CEO and President. The resolution passed unanimously. As of May 26, 1997, Hammond would be removed and Ludlow would take his place.
1997 consisted of a bitter rivalry between Ludlow and his uncle. In the ensuing months, Ludlow assembled a team of InGen Security personnel and outside experts termed the Harvesters (sometimes referred to as the Hunters) to retrieve animal assets from Isla Sorna and transport them to Jurassic Park: San Diego. In the meantime, construction on the Park resumed, with the amphitheater and waterfront complex being major focal points. Ludlow’s lead hunter was British Kenyan big-game hunter Roland Tembo, who was reached via his trusted tracker Ajay Sidhu; at the time, Tembo was spear-hunting jaguars in the Brazilian Amazon and could not be contacted directly. Tembo accepted the offer sometime by May 23. Another contact of Tembo’s, Dieter Stark, was hired to command the capture team and drive the lead “snagger” vehicle. Recognizing the usefulness that a paleontological expert could provide, Ludlow also hired American vertebrate paleontologist Dr. Robert Burke to advise the team. The plan was to use InGen ships including the cargo vessel S.S. Venture 5888 to reach Isla Sorna within two days of the transfer of power, collect assets, and ship them to San Diego to populate the Park ahead of its opening day. The operation would be managed by Ludlow onsite in conjunction with the Harvest Base at headquarters. Specialized transport trucks were already prepared to move animals from the dock to the Park.
Without Ludlow’s knowledge, Hammond assembled his own counter-expedition to create a photo record of the dinosaurs which would be used to advocate for their protection. Hammond’s team, termed the Gatherers, included four people: behavioral paleontologist Dr. Sarah Harding, field equipment specialist Eddie Carr, videographer Nick Van Owen, and Dr. Ian Malcolm himself. It was Hammond’s plan to complete this counter-expedition before Ludlow even arrived on Isla Sorna, though he had no knowledge of how soon Ludlow would be leaving. Ludlow encountered Malcolm at Hammond’s residence in New York City while finalizing paperwork on May 26; many of Hammond’s personal assets were being liquidated at the time. Ludlow and Malcolm had a brief confrontation before going their separate ways, neither of them aware of Hammond’s plans, and Malcolm unaware of Ludlow’s.
In fact, Ludlow was fully prepared for Isla Sorna by that time. The S.S. Venture departed with full crew and a fleet of vehicles on May 28, with Ludlow’s absence explained by a story crafted by his public relations department. He advised InGen’s Vice Presidents of the mission, requesting a proposal from the marketing division to advertise Jurassic Park: San Diego and ensure that the amphitheater was fully packed on opening day. With the Park nearly complete, he anticipated that in less than a month it could open its doors, making enough money to save InGen from the financial ruin that Hammond had led it into over the past four years.
1997 incidents, death, and legacy
The S.S. Venture arrived near Isla Sorna’s northeastern coast on May 28, 1997. Ludlow’s team was briefed on the dinosaur species that inhabited the island, utilizing a copy of the 1994 asset catalogue InGen had created during the cleanup. Target species intended for Jurassic Park: San Diego included Compsognathus, Gallimimus, Pachycephalosaurus, Parasaurolophus, Stegosaurus, and Triceratops, constituting a mostly-herbivorous roster. The larger carnivores were to be avoided; their nesting sites were farther inland and thus easier to steer clear of.
Ludlow rode into Isla Sorna himself alongside his employees, being airlifted in a Jeep YJ driven by his lead hunter Roland Tembo. They traveled inland using an abandoned road to reach a game trail in the island’s northeast where Ludlow witnessed the dinosaurs firsthand; this would have been the first time in at least four years when he would have seen them in person. On the drive in, Tembo waived his fee, telling Ludlow that the only payment he needed was the right to hunt and kill a buck tyrannosaur. Ludlow initially instructed the Harvesters to set up base camp on the game trail, but Tembo reprimanded him for this decision, telling him that the game trail would be stalked by hunting carnivores and therefore an unsafe place to camp.
The first day of the expedition was a great success. A Pachycephalosaurus and a Parasaurolophus were the first two animals captured by the team led by Stark in the snagger, and by nightfall, all of their target species had been captured. They even had infants of two species, Stegosaurus and Triceratops, to display alongside their parents. Tembo and Sidhu had also captured an infant Tyrannosaurus from its nest; they intended to use it to lure its father, which Tembo would then kill as his trophy. Ludlow intended to bring the infant to San Diego without the adults, putting it on display and raising it in captivity. The Park animals were held in cages in the Harvesters’ base camp, while the tyrannosaur was restrained near a hunting blind in the nearby forest. Ludlow congratulated Tembo on his success, even if he did not understand Tembo’s motives. While they talked, the intoxicated Ludlow was startled by a small animal in the undergrowth and slipped; he landed on the young tyrannosaur, breaking its right leg. He was reprimanded by Tembo for harming the animal and went to sober up in time for his conference with the Board.
That night, Ludlow contacted the Board of Directors as well as InGen’s prospective investors via satellite link to demonstrate his success and plan for the grand opening of Jurassic Park: San Diego. He showed off a couple Compsognathus that his team had captured, promising to treat his audience to the larger specimens soon, and reviewed a diorama of the Jurassic Park amphitheater.
During his teleconference, the tent was rammed by the bull Triceratops his team had captured. Ludlow survived, but their radio equipment was destroyed, and the vehicles were also lost when spilled gasoline ignited. Save for the compies that were kept inside the tent, all of the animals had somehow gotten loose and fled from the gas-fueled fires. The hunters were unable to recapture the escaped animals. Ludlow and the lead hunters investigated the scene to find out how, under Stark’s watch, all the animals had escaped from their locked cages and the vehicles had exploded due to gasoline leaks igniting. Such a thing did not seem like it could happen at random, and while investigating, they uncovered evidence of sabotage. The padlocks on the cages had been cut, not unlocked, and the vehicles’ fuel lines had been slit. It became clear that someone else was present on the island with them.
The Harvesters searched the area for signs of their saboteurs, eventually locating an observation platform in the forest. Hiding there they found Kelly Malcolm, daughter of Ian Malcolm, and learned of the existence of Hammond’s Gatherer team. The sabotage had been Nick Van Owen and Sarah Harding’s doing, and the infant tyrannosaur had been taken to the Gatherers’ campsite to have its leg mended. Its distress cries had drawn the adults, as Tembo had predicted, but the Gatherers were not prepared to defend themselves; the parents had recovered their offspring and attacked the Gatherers’ camp, pushing the vehicles over the seaside cliffs. Taking the young Kelly with them, the Harvesters approached the Gatherers’ campsite to find the aftermath of the attack: Eddie Carr was dead, and all of the Gatherers’ radio equipment had gone over the cliffs.
Ludlow was angry at the Gatherers’ actions, both for sabotaging his efforts and for destroying the radio equipment of both teams. Still, he could not in good conscience leave Malcolm and the others on Isla Sorna to die. The two teams joined together in an effort to survive, knowing that the tyrannosaurs were likely still protecting the area. Ludlow, with his inside knowledge of the InGen facilities, directed them to the Workers’ Village, where the Site B staff had once resided when the island was in use. It was the nearest facility with radio equipment they could use to contact headquarters, and since it ran on geothermal power, it would still be functional. The only issue was that infrared satellite imagery revealed a Velociraptor nesting site near the Village, which would make approaching it a risky maneuver. Nonetheless, it was their only hope for getting off the island, and so they began the trek.
The teams moved westward across Isla Sorna over the course of the night, during which time Ludlow and Malcolm talked over their differences. While they remained civil, they did not come to understand one another any better; Malcolm criticized Ludlow for attempting to emulate Hammond, and Ludlow dismissed Malcolm’s concerns as overblown. Their trek continued throughout the day. It was largely uneventful, though it became apparent that the tyrannosaurs were still in the area. Later in the afternoon the group took a short break to rest; during the break, Stark left to relieve himself, but did not return. Tembo took a few hunters to search for him, and Ludlow tried to rouse the demoralized group to continue. By now it was apparent that they no longer considered him a leader, as they responded to Nick Van Owen instead. That evening, a temporary base camp was set up before the final and most treacherous leg of the journey. While Ludlow rested, Malcolm stayed up with Tembo and Sidhu to plan their route down the cliffs. Stark’s corpse had been found mostly stripped of flesh.
Ludlow was awoken not long after by the sounds of panic: the mother and father tyrannosaur had entered the camp. The terrified hunters scattered, some heading for the Workers’ Village through an open grassland while others ran for the shelter of the forest. The hunters that took to the grassland were ambushed by the raptors that inhabited the area, leading to multiple deaths. Ludlow remained in the trees, where it was less exposed. He returned to the campsite to find that Tembo had tranquilized the male tyrannosaur in defense of the other hunters and himself.
InGen was on the brink in that moment, with all its assets lost and numerous casualties to its hunting party. Ludlow realized that he had one chance to save his company, and it now lay before him. When rescue arrived from the S.S. Venture, having been contacted by Van Owen from the Workers’ Village Operations Center, he instructed them to bring transport for the Tyrannosaurus and to recover the infant from its nest before its mother returned home. A jet was dispatched from San Diego, landing at the Site B airfield to the west of the Village; the infant was captured and brought to the jet, while its father was airlifted to the Venture. Ludlow offered Tembo a job at Jurassic Park, which Tembo declined.
Ludlow flew to San Diego on the jet, overseeing the infant’s delivery to Jurassic Park. The animal was sedated to make it easier to handle. From there, he proceeded to InGen’s waterfront complex, where he held a press conference regarding the opening of the Park early before sunrise. This press conference was attended by Drs. Malcolm and Harding, who had wanted to stop the Park from opening but were powerless to do so.
During the press conference, before Ludlow could completely unveil Jurassic Park, he was advised by one of his Security personnel of an urgent development. Assuring the press that he would return, he met with the harbormaster to learn that the Venture was arriving ahead of schedule and was approaching the harbor at flight speed. The harbormaster attempted to reach the ship, but could not raise a response. Horrified, Ludlow bore witness to the Venture colliding with the dock, causing severe property damage and possibly injuries.
Recovering from the shock of the crash, Ludlow brought InGen Security staff including Leon, Berner, and Jerry Randall on board to investigate. Berner located remains of crew members scattered around; the tyrannosaur’s cage appeared to have been damaged by an onboard vehicle, and the animal was nowhere in sight. Ludlow and Berner investigated the wheelhouse and found the captain’s remains. The cargo bay doors were in a loop of closing, getting stuck ajar, and closing again, the controls in a deceased crewmember’s hand. Ludlow ordered the cargo hold to be opened so that they could rescue any crew still inside, and Randall complied. Malcolm, who had joined in the investigation, warned them not to open the hold, but he was too late; the tyrannosaur, which had been trapped inside by the crew, escaped and fled the harbor.
Once again, Ludlow was shocked by this turn of events, and was confronted by Malcolm over his failure. They learned from surviving crew what had happened; the animal had overdosed on carfentanil, so the crew had administered naltrexone to counteract it. However, they once again overdosed the animal, causing it to go into a drug-fueled manic state. In the ensuing panic, a crewmember had damaged the cage with a vehicle, causing the animal to get out and attack the people on deck; a mortally wounded crewman had shut the cargo bay doors after the animal was lured inside. Malcolm and Harding planned to get both tyrannosaurs back to the ship and seal them in the cargo hold once again, but they first needed the infant. Ludlow, still in shock, told them where to find the infant in the Jurassic Park amphitheater.
While Malcolm and Harding dealt with the unfolding incident, Ludlow recovered from his shock and began working with the San Diego Police Department and Animal Control to gain control of the situation before Malcolm and Harding could resolve it their own way. When apprehending the animal using conventional means proved ineffective, a helicopter piloted by the local SWAT was dispatched instead. Ludlow ordered the animal shot; the SDPD SWAT assumed at first that he meant both the adult and infant, which he corrected to mean only the adult. He insisted that the baby be kept alive, as it was now InGen’s last hope for avoiding bankruptcy. As he gave these orders from his car, Malcolm and Harding drove past with the infant in tow; he left to pursue them.
His chase led him back on board the Venture. Malcolm and Harding jumped ship to evade him, but he heard the infant’s distress cry from within the cargo hold. He followed the sound of the animal, discovering that its muzzle had been removed and that it was strong enough to walk again. Ludlow tried to encourage the animal to come to him, and for a moment it appeared that it would come, but it was instead running to its father. The adult male had entered the cargo hold also following the infant’s distress calls. Ludlow, panicked and trapped, tried to run up the stairs to the main deck of the ship but was grabbed by his legs and returned to the floor of the hold. He tried to run, but his mangled left leg could not carry him far and he was knocked down by the adult. As the adult gently pushed the infant forward, Ludlow realized that he was being used as hunting practice, and the infant pounced on him. He was mauled to death, becoming the young tyrannosaur’s first kill.
Since Malcolm and Harding had not seen Ludlow enter the cargo hold, and no one else witnessed these events, Ludlow’s cause of death was not known right away. His remains (if any were left) would probably have only been found after the tyrannosaurs were safely returned to Isla Sorna and the hold was safe to enter. On that note, Ludlow’s last goal of killing the adult tyrannosaur and raising the infant in captivity was entirely averted, as both animals were safely returned home and were not put on exhibit. Jurassic Park: San Diego never opened, leaving InGen without a major source of income.
Tyrannosaurs can break bone with their jaws, but cannot digest it. Therefore, if any part of Ludlow’s body was eaten by either tyrannosaur, his fragmentary skeletal remains would have been eventually excreted somewhere in the central region of Isla Sorna and are probably still there.
Ludlow was only CEO officially for five days, and is not generally recalled as the face of InGen in the way that Hammond is. In the months following Ludlow’s death, Hammond worked with the U.S. government to create the Gene Guard Act, which instituted legal protections for the animals of Isla Sorna before passing away himself at the end of 1997. The incidents that occurred on Isla Sorna and in San Diego this year ultimately set the stage for decades of controversy surrounding de-extinct animal rights, with Hammond’s and Ludlow’s philosophies on the subject evolving into some of the major stances still seen today. Ludlow, in particular, is seen as the original take that de-extinct animals are products of the company or organization that bred them and therefore do not have the same rights as naturally extant species.
Skills
Business
Although Ludlow probably had his foot in the door with InGen thanks to being related to its founder John Hammond, he did demonstrate his skill at business by earning the respect of other InGen staff members such as the Board of Directors. He appears to have been involved with the company’s finances; during his time at InGen the company faced several incredibly expensive ventures, such as two separate attempts at building Jurassic Park and the consequences of the first failed effort. Ludlow served as InGen’s Chairman during the four years in between the 1993 and 1997 incidents, during which time he managed to keep the company from bankruptcy. He was adaptable and opportunistic, taking any chance to keep InGen afloat during such difficult times; his plan for Jurassic Park: San Diego changed readily as the incident in 1997 developed, with Ludlow enacting at least three different plans to open the Park before his death.
Ludlow’s skill as a businessman also extended to leadership, assuming the position of CEO and President after Hammond was deposed; he had been plotting this move for some time, anticipating an opportunity to rise to power. In spite of his ambition, though, he did appear to be primarily motivated by the good of the company as a whole, not just for himself. During the 1997 capture expedition, Ludlow personally attended to oversee the operation despite having little to no field experience. He was, of course, not a perfect leader, having gotten noticeably intoxicated while on the job during the events of 1997. Ludlow recognized that he was not the chief authority on field operations while on this expedition and deferred to Roland Tembo, Dieter Stark, and Ajay Sidhu.
Politics
In tandem with his business skills, Ludlow was quite capable of navigating corporate politics and earning favor among his colleagues. He also understood the importance of money in interpersonal politics, both in and out of the boardroom; after the Jurassic Park incident in 1993, InGen put large amounts of its financial resources to work keeping survivors and ex-employees quiet. Ludlow also navigated the Bowman lawsuit, satisfying the family enough that they did not bring InGen to public court. This would have revealed the existence of Site B and de-extinction before InGen was ready to do so.
Ludlow’s political moves were hardly always ethical, but they were always effective. When Ian Malcolm violated his nondisclosure agreement in 1995, it would have been easy for Ludlow to simply allow Malcolm to make a fool of himself by propagating wild claims about de-extinction that he lacked the evidence to prove. Instead, Ludlow chose to take no chances, giving information to reputable news sources to publicly discredit and defame Malcolm. These falsified reports claimed that Malcolm had been paid off, having accepted bribes to spin tales about InGen and some outlandish conspiracy involving living dinosaurs. His efforts do not appear to have been completely in earnest; after all, Jurassic Park: San Diego was going to open in less than a month, and Malcolm would surely be forgiven by the public when that happened.
Ludlow was an effective public speaker, able to hold an audience during proposals and announcements. This skill helped him during InGen Corporate Resolution 213C, the remote presentation to InGen’s Board and investors, and the press conference that would have announced Jurassic Park: San Diego to the public. Two of these examples were interrupted partway through, but Corporate Resolution 213C ended with Ludlow being unanimously named CEO of InGen. Ludlow’s success at public speaking was criticized by Dr. Ian Malcolm as being largely due to Ludlow’s relation to John Hammond, who Malcolm claims Ludlow attempted to emulate.
Perhaps Ludlow’s greatest skill as far as interpersonal politics are concerned was the ability to fake friendliness, which he used to great effect throughout his career. In public, he acted jovial, even treating his hired hunters like brothers-in-arms and drinking with the men after a long day’s work. In private, Ludlow could be spiteful toward those who had wronged him. Depending on who he was speaking with and what he intended to get from them, his mannerisms and tone of voice could change dramatically, establishing completely different moods based on how he intended to make other people act toward him. This was highly effective in some cases, but notably had no effect on Roland Tembo.
Physical ability
A businessman by trade, Ludlow was not especially athletic or skilled in the outdoors. He was visually impaired, requiring eyeglasses at all times; this was a trait he shared with his uncle John Hammond, and it may be hereditary.
For a period of several minutes on during the San Diego incident, Ludlow was mobility-impaired due to a tyrannosaur badly breaking his left leg in at least two places. This condition ended shortly thereafter when the animal’s offspring rendered the rest of his body inoperable as well.
Skill with animals
Ludlow seems to have believed that he had an understanding of animals, at least the de-extinct creatures that InGen bred on Isla Sorna. He was repeatedly demonstrated to be far less knowledgeable than he thought; his hired experts, particularly Roland Tembo, would correct him on errors he made such as planning to camp on a game trail.
During the culmination of the 1997 incidents, he attempted to handle a juvenile tyrannosaur after it recovered from tranquilizing drugs, speaking gently to the animal and making encouraging motions. For a moment, it looked as though the creature was going to come to him, but it was actually running to its father, who had approached behind Ludlow. This act on Ludlow’s part was a desperate effort to save InGen by recapturing the juvenile, and as he was in an emotional state, this may not have been an action he would normally have attempted.
Driving
At the time of his death, Ludlow was seen to own a 1995 Lincoln Town Car. This means he held a driver’s license recognized as valid in the United States, though it was more likely a British license.
Views
Political views
Ludlow held conservative, capitalistic political views, which led him into conflict with his uncle when the latter became invested in ecology and environmentalism. While Ludlow acknowledged the importance of nature and did appear fascinated by the dinosaurs InGen created, he also believed that corporate profits were the real goal of Jurassic Park rather than the awe and wonder Hammond had longed to bring to the public eye. Ludlow was not above using InGen’s money to settle wrongful death lawsuits out of court, pay survivors of incidents into silence, and otherwise protect InGen from bad press, illustrating the power that money holds in corporate politics.
On business
The business strategies employed by Ludlow can be best summarized in three parts: brand recognition, accessibility, and opportunity. His choice to return to Jurassic Park’s original San Diego location best encapsulates all three of these strategies. First, as he described to the Board of Directors and InGen’s potential investors, San Diego is already associated with animal attractions such as SeaWorld San Diego and the San Diego Zoo (as well as the San Diego Chargers, a football team he humorously added to the list). Opening Jurassic Park in this city would therefore capitalize on the public’s recognition of San Diego as a hub of animal parks and take advantage of the preexisting audience for such attractions. Second, Hammond’s decision to relocate the Park to Isla Nublar was seen as a mistake, since it would make the Park far less accessible to the average person. Ludlow believed that by choosing San Diego, he could make the Park easier and much less expensive to visit. Third, InGen already owned the property in San Diego where the Park would be built, and had mostly completed the infrastructure. Rather than build an entirely new Park, he could save costs by utilizing existing InGen property.
Ludlow’s opportunistic business strategy was criticized by Dr. Ian Malcolm as being overly optimistic. Malcolm believed that the failures of Jurassic Park were chiefly due to upper management ignoring possible threats, and that Ludlow was making similar mistakes. One can describe Ludlow as not knowing when to give up; his effort to capture some of the more manageable dinosaurs for Jurassic Park was sabotaged, but when he saw an opportunity to capture the tyrannosaurs, he did so despite having intentionally avoided these animals before. Then, when this effort failed due to his staff not understanding the animals’ biology, he attempted to save the situation again by killing the adult and keeping the juvenile in captivity alone. Not only would this act have been cruel to both animals, Ludlow had no guarantee that he could keep the juvenile alive without its parents to care for it.
In addition, Ludlow’s business approach was criticized by John Hammond for being disrespectful toward nature, a complaint that has also been leveled against Hammond himself. In the four years after the 1993 incident, Hammond prevented InGen from enacting the plan that Ludlow eventually put into action in 1997 because he believed that the dinosaurs deserved to live in peace without human interference. This was one of the points of contention between Hammond and Ludlow, since Ludlow saw this as a failure of leadership and did not believe that InGen should favor animal rights over corporate profits, especially when InGen was on the brink of bankruptcy. Ludlow was certainly making a power grab with Corporate Resolution 213C, but his interest was also with the overall success of the company and all of its employees and investors. In general, he was respectful toward all the people he worked with, even though he was relentless in persecuting his enemies such as Dr. Malcolm when they threatened his business.
On de-extinct animal rights
Ludlow did not believe in de-extinct animal rights. To paraphrase his own words, InGen created and patented Jurassic Park’s animals, and therefore InGen owned them. While his view is defensible from a legal standpoint, it is one of the major criticisms of genetically modified organisms. In line with many past and current corporate takes on GMOs, Ludlow also believed that InGen’s ownership over its biological assets extended to those assets’ natural offspring, even those born in the wild without human assistance.
Ludlow’s beliefs enabled InGen to forcibly seize the animals from the habitat they had established on Isla Sorna with little to no regard for their emotional and physical well-being, treating them as roughly as necessary to keep them under control. At his most extreme, he would have killed the father of a baby tyrannosaur and kept the infant permanently separated from its own kind in order to put it on display in Jurassic Park, though his original plan was to exhibit father and son together.
Relationships
Family
Peter Ludlow was born from a marriage of the Ludlow and Hammond families, and his mother was the sister of Scottish entrepreneur Dr. John Parker Alfred Hammond. The name of his mother is not currently known, as is the name of his first cousin, the daughter of John Hammond. In 1979/1980 and 1983/1984, respectively, his cousin gave birth to two children, Lex and Tim Murphy, after herself marrying into the Murphy family. These children would be Ludlow’s first cousins once removed. As of 1993, the Murphy parents were divorcing, and the children visited Jurassic Park to avoid the stress of this family crisis. Ludlow was not known to make any statement regarding what happened to the children; it is most likely that he put InGen’s survival over their own psychological well-being after the incident, which would have further embittered Hammond toward Ludlow. When they met briefly in 1997, Ludlow did not exchange words with the Murphy children, who behaved cautious and uncomfortable around their cousin and promptly left the room when he arrived.
Ludlow himself was married sometime before 1997, as he wore a wedding band at the time of his death. The name of his partner is not known. Shortly before Ludlow’s death in 1997, Malcolm sarcastically told Ludlow that talent skips a generation (referring to Ludlow and Hammond) and that therefore Ludlow’s children would be smart and skilled. This implies that Ludlow was married to a woman and suggests that they may not have had children yet, but could also be interpreted to mean that Ludlow had very young children at that time; however, it is actually unknown if he had children or not.
The most detailed family relationship Ludlow had was his relationship with his maternal uncle, John Hammond. Ludlow’s first, and only, known job was at InGen, the company his uncle founded in 1975 when Ludlow would have been approaching twenty years old. It is likely that his relation to Hammond helped him get his foot in the door at InGen, securing him a position. Hammond’s handling of the fallout of the 1993 incident drove a wedge between uncle and nephew, culminating with InGen Corporate Resolution 213C. This removed Hammond as CEO and President, putting Ludlow in his place. Hammond had grown environmentalist after the 1993 incident and put InGen’s profits aside to protect the dinosaurs of Isla Sorna, while Ludlow’s capitalism remained unchanged by the incident. In effect, Ludlow came to be a replacement of the Hammond of 1993, and has been accused of trying to emulate Hammond to his own benefit.
Hammond and Ludlow’s wills clashed during 1997, when Ludlow defied Hammond’s wishes and went to capture dinosaurs from Isla Sorna. Hammond sent a counter-expedition to try and get a head start, or sabotage Ludlow’s team if they were too late. This put Ludlow’s life in peril when both groups lost their radio equipment and a tyrannosaur family was drawn into following the humans across the island. However, Ludlow ultimately survived Isla Sorna, only to put himself at unnecessary risk while trying to claim victory over Hammond and open Jurassic Park. This was what resulted in his death on board the S.S. Venture at the waterfront in San Diego, where he had first come to work with Hammond many years ago.
InGen
It is unknown when Ludlow first got his job at International Genetic Technologies, Inc., but it would have been sometime after 1975 when the company was founded by John Hammond and Benjamin Lockwood. He explicitly mentioned being employed at the waterfront complex in San Diego fifteen years prior to 1997, placing his start at InGen in 1982 at the latest. At that time, he would have been roughly twenty-five years old. He worked at InGen consistently for the rest of his life, playing a major role in the company by 1993. Sometime before 1996, he became the Chairman of the Board of Directors.
Ludlow did not work onsite on Isla Nublar or Isla Sorna, and so his relationships with Park and Site B staff were probably minimal. He was likely acquainted with Jurassic Park’s senior staff including Robert Muldoon, Dr. Laura Sorkin, Dennis T. Nedry, John Raymond Arnold, Dr. Henry Wu, and Dr. Gerry Harding. In particular, Nedry was of importance because he was bribed by one of InGen’s corporate rivals to steal trade secrets, causing the 1993 incident. Muldoon and Arnold were also significant due to the lawsuits their families struck InGen with after their deaths; this was also the case with lawyer Donald Gennaro, who was most likely hired by Ludlow or one of his close associates at InGen. Of all the above mentioned staff, only Henry Wu still worked at InGen during the ensuing years; Dr. Harding was still alive but left the company in 1993. Wu continued to perform valuable research, indicating that Ludlow saw his use and funded his work, but Wu does not seem to have felt the same way. When Wu created a novel species of flowering plant through genetic hybridization in early 1997, he lamented in a memo that Hammond was not well enough to come see the fruits of his labor, but made no mention of Ludlow. Wu and Hammond were clearly still friends at that point.
Other relationships Ludlow had at InGen are detailed via the InGen IntraNet website and deleted film scenes. He worked closely with the company’s seven Vice Presidents, but was especially close with Melissa Shenkin (Human Resources), Megan Odell (Marketing), Jim Boutcher (Security), and James Saunders (Systems Administration). Ludlow eventually became their boss when he ascended to the position of CEO and President. He then shared power with the Chief Financial Officer, who he had probably worked closely with before, as well as the Board of Directors who unanimously made him CEO in Corporate Resolution 213C.
During the financial crisis of 1993-1997, Ludlow relied heavily on InGen’s marketing team to keep the company from bankruptcy, and appears to have genuinely appreciated the effort Megan Odell and her division put in to save InGen. His relationship with Jim Boutcher and InGen Security was similarly positive, trusting Boutcher to keep secrecy even from Hammond and to provide him with only the best Security personnel to form the Harvester team roster. Less clear is his relationship with Melissa Shenkin of Human Resources, but since she was anticipating being named CEO once Hammond was deposed, she may have harbored resentment toward him. Other employees he worked with who are featured on the IntraNet include Steve Hyland, Maria Dillinger, Dr. Stephen P. Jackson, James Preston, Ted Garvey, and Kevin Davis.
During the 1997 incident, Ludlow’s public relations team concocted a story to explain his absence while overseeing the Harvester operation. Ludlow intended to remain in contact with the Harvest Base at InGen’s headquarters, coordinating the mission, but communications were cut off due to sabotage. Although Ludlow was not a natural at fieldwork, he still accompanied the Harvesters on the mission directly, trying to help direct them. None of his employees came to harm until after the sabotage, so Ludlow can be considered innocent in the Isla Sorna incident. However, his insistence on opening the Park after it had been sabotaged did lead directly to deaths on the S.S. Venture and in San Diego, some of which were InGen staff members.
A number of InGen Security guards worked with him at the waterfront complex and Jurassic Park amphitheater, including Jerry Randall, Cray, Leon, Berner, Gomez, Hampton, Smith, and Wilson. He worked most closely with Randall, Leon, and Berner during the San Diego incident. Ludlow also communicated with InGen’s harbormaster while the S.S. Venture approached, and presumably was familiar with the crew of the Venture since this was his means of transport to Isla Sorna. He left the island by jet, which was most likely piloted by InGen staff.
Although Ludlow is remembered for his harsh treatment of InGen’s enemies, he was actually quite respectful to the people he worked with. Of course, this amicable personality was not without its limits, and Ludlow could become hostile to even a fellow employee if they threatened the company’s future, as happened with Hammond himself.
Since his death, Ludlow has (like many less pleasant aspects of InGen) been largely left to history and is not discussed by the company. While recent and current employees such as Claire Dearing were made aware of his contributions to InGen, the company does not actively encourage keeping his memory alive. Part of this may have been due to the company’s change of ownership following Ludlow’s death. Even earlier in 1997, Masrani Global Corporation had been interested in buying InGen, and this occurred in 1998. The corporation’s CEO, Simon Masrani, was the son of John Hammond’s close friend Sanjay Masrani and viewed Hammond as a father figure. Therefore, it is unlikely that he and Ludlow were friends. Masrani also fundamentally opposed Ludlow’s view on de-extinct animal rights, making it likely that Masrani tried to bury Ludlow’s legacy.
Dr. Ian Malcolm
When Jurassic Park required outside endorsements, the scientist chosen by legal representative Donald Gennaro (who was most likely hired by Ludlow) was mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm, chosen for his skill at analyzing complex systems and identifying faults that could develop into larger problems. While Malcolm and Ludlow may not have met in person, their relationship would not end with Malcolm being evacuated off Isla Nublar during the 1993 incident. Unlike the other survivors of the incident, he violated his nondisclosure agreement by telling Dr. Sarah Harding what had happened on Isla Nublar. He went on to speak on public television about the incident in 1995, presenting a threat to InGen’s external security.
To ensure that Malcolm did not expose de-extinction before InGen was ready, Ludlow took swift and decisive action to discredit him. Ludlow went to the press, telling respected newspapers and magazines that Malcolm had taken bribes to spread conspiracy theories about InGen. This humiliated Malcolm in the public eye, causing serious damage to his career. Malcolm came to resent Ludlow not only for this relentless smear campaign, but for covering up the truth about what had happened on Isla Nublar. Ludlow, likewise, became frustrated with Malcolm’s persistence as well as the threat he posed to InGen and grew to hate him.
This enmity was one of the reasons Malcolm was chosen to join the Gatherer team assembled in secret by Hammond, though Malcolm was not informed that Ludlow would be sending his own team to the island. Malcolm did not participate directly in the sabotage, but did not make a move to stop it. The sabotage of the Harvester encampment led to both teams losing their radio equipment and nearly cost Malcolm his life; Ludlow’s team, in fact, saved Malcolm and his companions. Though the two men hated one another, they put aside their differences for the moment and joined forces to survive Isla Sorna.
Unfortunately, neither Malcolm nor Ludlow budged on their viewpoints during their time together and they remained firmly opposed. Malcolm’s insistence may even have driven Ludlow to greater extremes to ensure that Jurassic Park did open after all. Back on the mainland, Malcolm attended Ludlow’s press conference and witnessed the S.S. Venture collide with the InGen waterfront. He helped to investigate the disaster, putting the pieces together to determine what had happened before Ludlow did; sadly he was too late to stop the tyrannosaur’s accidental release. Ludlow, in a state of shock, was reprimanded by Malcolm and Dr. Harding but did help them by telling them where the infant tyrannosaur could be found.
Ludlow recovered from his shock, though, and began working with the San Diego Police Department and Animal Control to resolve the incident his own way. Malcolm and Harding were attempting to recapture both tyrannosaurs on the Venture, and Ludlow sought to ensure that the adult was killed and the infant captured for Jurassic Park. He witnessed the scientists head for the dock and board the ship, pursuing them; they leapt overboard to escape him. This was the last Ludlow saw of Malcolm, as he followed the infant tyrannosaur’s distress cries into the belly of the ship and was subsequently killed by its father. Though Malcolm and Harding can be seen as responsible for Ludlow’s death, it was his own choice to follow them and capture the infant without waiting for help that resulted him Ludlow being killed. Malcolm almost certainly did not intend for Ludlow to die.
Hammond’s Gatherer team
Along with Dr. Ian Malcolm, Hammond hired videographer and activist Nick Van Owen, paleobiologist Dr. Sarah Harding, and field equipment specialist Eddie Carr to make up his four-person Gatherer team. Together, they were intended to create a complete photo record of Isla Sorna’s animals living in the wild to sway public opinion in favor of preserving them. Van Owen in particular was the only one briefed on Ludlow’s plan to capture the dinosaurs, and was tasked with sabotaging Ludlow if necessary. When Ludlow arrived sooner than expected, Van Owen put this plan into action, with Dr. Harding assisting. The Harvesters’ vehicles had their gas lines cut, and the dinosaurs were let out of their cages. This destroyed the Harvester camp, though the sheer amount of destruction caused may have been unplanned. Ludlow survived this attack.
While searching the island to find those responsible, the Harvesters encountered Kelly Curtis Malcolm, the stowaway fifth member of Hammond’s team and daughter to Ian Malcolm. They probably learned about the Gatherer mission from her, and that the Gatherers were immediately in danger from a tyrannosaur attack. Protecting Kelly, the Harvesters made for the Gatherer camp and rescued Malcolm, Harding, and Van Owen; Carr had perished in the attack.
Ludlow offered protection to the Harvesters, despite the fact that they had irreparably harmed his mission and put lives in danger. The Harvesters even gave their only remaining tent to Dr. Harding and Kelly; even Ludlow would have slept on the ground for this. Ludlow worked with Dr. Malcolm and Van Owen to plan to reach the Workers’ Village, restart the power there, and call the Harvest Base for the S.S. Venture to send rescue. Ludlow was separated from the Gatherers during the attack on the temporary base camp, leaving the island via jet separately from them.
Of the Gatherer team, only Drs. Malcolm and Harding were involved with the San Diego incident. As described above, the scientists attended Ludlow’s press conference at the dock and witnessed the S.S. Venture collide with the waterfront complex. They confronted the shell-shocked Ludlow after the tyrannosaur escaped, learning where its son was being held so they could bring both animals back to the ship’s cargo hold. After he regained his composure, Ludlow began working with local authorities to take control of the situation before the scientists could succeed. When he saw that they were headed for the harbor again with the infant in tow, he took it upon himself to stop them. Malcolm and Harding jumped off the Venture when he chased them on board, but he heard the infant’s distress cry and realized it was in the hold. This led to his death as he was captured by the adult, which let the juvenile kill him. As discussed before, Drs. Malcolm and Harding almost certainly did not intend for Ludlow to come to harm, and probably did not expect that he would enter the cargo hold when he knew the adult was coming.
Roland Tembo and Ajay Sidhu
To head the Harvester expedition, Ludlow sought out a seasoned hunter who had proven his skill in the field. He chose Roland Tembo, a famed big-game hunter who had plenty of experience dealing with dangerous large animals. At the time he sought him out in 1997, Tembo was spear-hunting jaguars in the Brazilian Amazon; instead, Ludlow contacted his tracker and best friend, Ajay Sidhu, and informed him of the mission. Sidhu relayed the invitation to Tembo when they next saw one another in Mombassa, and Tembo accepted it for the opportunity to face down exceptional quarry no human being had ever hunted before.
However, Tembo and Ludlow were not entirely on the same wavelength during the expedition. Ludlow, used to being in charge, instinctively gave instructions to the Harvesters and had to be corrected by Tembo. While on the island, Tembo was the leader, not Ludlow, and he made sure his employer was aware of this. From that point on, Ludlow deferred to Tembo’s authority. Tembo actually waived his fee, declining pay in exchange for the right to hunt a male tyrannosaur. Ludlow agreed, probably delighted that the venture would be less expensive.
Throughout the mission, Tembo expressed a clear annoyance at Ludlow’s lack of field experience and mismatched sense of authority. To Tembo, the hunt was a time-honored tradition that pitted him against the raw power of nature. To Ludlow, it was a means to profit, and a fun one at that. Ludlow believed that the dinosaurs were rightfully InGen property and thus had no cause to show respect to his quarry, which Tembo found distasteful. Ludlow did not show any outward signs of conflict with Tembo, even while intoxicated. He needed Tembo’s support, and so acted friendly and jovial with him while on the mission. Tembo was later essential to Ludlow’s survival on Isla Sorna as they were forced to trek across the island to the Workers’ Village. During the last night of the incident, Tembo tranquilized the male tyrannosaur that had been attacking the party, which Ludlow took advantage of to capture and transport the animal off Isla Sorna. Ludlow offered Tembo a job at InGen, using a softer and more respectful tone than the boyish enthusiasm he typically used with Tembo. Even then, Tembo declined, citing his friend Sidhu’s death during the incident.
Roland Tembo is notably one of the few people who was completely unaffected by Ludlow’s skills of social manipulation. Ludlow tried several different approaches to win Tembo’s alliegence throughout the 1997 incident, failing each time.
Dieter Stark
Along with Roland Tembo and Ajay Sidhu, Ludlow hired Tembo’s associate Dieter Stark for the 1997 Harvester expedition. Stark was Tembo’s longtime hunting partner and second-in-command during the mission, assuming control whenever Tembo was not around. Ludlow chose Stark for his skill with vehicles, selecting him to drive the lead snagger. He most likely met Stark through Sidhu, since both Stark and Sidhu were associates of Roland Tembo.
For the most part, Stark and Ludlow’s relationship is poorly known, as they did not work together very closely during the operation. Stark had even less respect for animals than Ludlow, who saw them as resources to exploit; since Ludlow needed Stark’s skills to capture the animals, he probably tolerated Stark’s mistreatment of them. However, Stark failed to notice Hammond’s Gatherers sneaking into camp and sabotaging the mission, probably not having anticipated this as a possibility. The cost Ludlow paid for Stark’s oversight was Jurassic Park itself.
During the 1997 incident, Stark went missing. This was the last straw for the remaining Harvesters, especially as Ludlow tried to appear optimistic and cheerful for them. After Stark’s disappearance, Ludlow was no longer recognized as the leader of the expedition. A few hours later, Stark was confirmed dead.
Dr. Robert Burke
Rounding out the Harvester team was vertebrate paleontologist Dr. Robert Burke, who Ludlow selected due to his theories about dinosaurian behavior. It is not currently known how they got in contact. Burke served to identify dinosaur species and advise the InGen team on how to approach and apprehend the animals based on his paleontological knowledge. He made some notable errors in this respect, and some of the theories he used to base his advice on were demonstrated to be incorrect (or, at least, not applicable to InGen’s genetically modified creatures).
Burke was one of the casualties of the incident. Unlike with Stark as mentioned above, Ludlow did not immediately send anyone to locate Burke and confirm whether he had died. This was because his death occurred during a chaotic tyrannosaur attack, which was followed almost immediately by the evacuation from Isla Sorna. Burke’s death was more likely confirmed by Dr. Sarah Harding, who along with Kelly Malcolm, Nick Van Owen, and possibly Dr. Ian Malcolm witnessed Dr. Burke being attacked by a tyrannosaur.
Governmental bodies
Ludlow dealt with both the United States and Costa Rican governments during his time at InGen, particularly during the financial crisis beginning in 1993. Ludlow would also have had relations with the U.S. government in order to work in the country, since he was a British national. He was probably involved with the leasing of Isla Nublar from Costa Rica, but probably not Isla Sorna, since that island was leased at a time when Ludlow was still a lower-level employee at the San Diego waterfront. It is possible that he was involved with Operation Clean Sweep, which was elevated to include all Isla Nublar dinosaurs during the 1993 incident; while the operation was postponed and then ultimately cancelled, it would have involved the U.S. Air Force napalm-bombing Isla Nublar.
From mid-1993 until the 1997 incidents, the Costa Rican government helped InGen cover up the existence of Jurassic Park in order to preserve its reputation as a tourist paradise. Ludlow was heavily involved with the Jurassic Park coverup.
General public
Ludlow was responsible for much of the Jurassic Park coverup, using his position and InGen’s monetary resources to maintain a conspiracy by manipulating public informaton. He distributed false information about Jurassic Park to newspapers and magazines such as Skeptical Inquirer and The Washington Post in order to discredit Dr. Ian Malcolm, though there were still some conspiracy theorists who believed Malcolm’s tales. Ludlow silenced people who learned the truth through payoffs, such as Paul and Deirdre Bowman. His intention, however, was only to maintain the coverup until Jurassic Park: San Diego was ready to open. Ludlow wanted to create a version of the Park that was more accessible to the average person than a remote island resort.
In the early morning before the San Diego incident, Ludlow spoke to members of the press about the Park, though he did not have time to mention it by name before the incident began. His press conference did have the effect of placing dozens of reporters and public figures at the waterfront to witness the Tyrannosaurus emerge from the S.S. Venture‘s cargo hold. Ludlow died during the incident, and has since been replaced in the public eye by the memory of John Hammond. While Ludlow remains an important figure in the history of de-extinction politics (introducing moral positions that are still held by various people to this day), he has largely faded from public memory, except to people who experienced the San Diego incident.
InGen animals
While Ludlow was employed at InGen when the first dinosaur (a Triceratops) was cloned on Isla Sorna in 1986, he did not work on the island directly. Instead, he was an employee at InGen’s waterfront complex in San Diego, California. Rather than witness the creation of the animals directly, Ludlow was likely involved with financing them.
He did not view the de-extinct species as proper natural creatures, but rather as products of InGen and resources the company could and should exploit for profit. After the 1993 incident ended the Jurassic Park project on Isla Nublar, Ludlow advocated for harvesting the dinosaurs from Isla Sorna to populate Jurassic Park: San Diego. This was blocked by Hammond until December 1996, when a group of Compsognathus attacked a vacationing child on Isla Sorna. Ludlow used this incident as the last straw to take power from Hammond, deposing him and taking his place as CEO.
Ludlow prepared a team to capture dinosaurs from Isla Sorna and landed on the island in 1997. His team spent the afternoon capturing dinosaurs from the northeastern game trail and the surrounding woodland. Their first two targets included a Pachycephalosaurus nicknamed “Friar Tuck” and a Parasaurolophus nicknamed “Elvis.” Other animals from the game trail were captured later, including one other Pachycephalosaurus, two Gallimimus, an adult and juvenile Stegosaurus, an adult bull and juvenile Triceratops, and at least two Compsognathus (with a possible four to six more). On the game trail, the Harvesters’ activity disturbed other animals that were not captured, including a pair of Mamenchisaurus which Ludlow was enthralled by. Ludlow’s lead hunter Roland Tembo waived his fee in exchange for the right to hunt and kill a buck Tyrannosaurus, which Ludlow permitted. Tembo captured a juvenile male tyrannosaur from its nest, intending to lure the father into a trap. After it was captured, Ludlow stumbled and fell onto the juvenile while intoxicated, breaking its leg.
Ludlow used two compies as an example of what InGen’s Board and investors could expect, promising to showcase the larger animals soon. However, when Hammond’s Gatherers released the bull Triceratops from its cage, the dinosaur destroyed the Harvester encampment before returning to the juvenile’s side and leaving the area. The chaos caused the Gallimimus and Parasaurolophus to flee in a panic, while the Pachycephalosaurus were aggravated by the action and began charging hunters. The compies scattered in confusion, probably stressed by the peril created by the larger dinosaurs; in particular, the two caged compies were most likely killed when the Triceratops demolished the tent they were being held in. The juvenile tyrannosaur was rescued by the Gatherer team, but its mother and father soon arrived to take it home and destroyed the Gatherers’ camp in defense of their family’s territory. This deprived Ludlow and his team, as well as Hammond’s, of any means of communicating with the outside world.
The loss of the dinosaurs meant disaster for InGen. To make matters worse, the tyrannosaurs were still defending the area, forcing the group to move quickly. They made for the Workers’ Village, where Ludlow was aware of a pride of Velociraptors nesting. Along the way, Ludlow lost one of his team leaders to a Compsognathus pack, and the tyrannosaurs continued to stalk them. During the second night of the incident, the tyrannosaurs attacked the temporary base camp, scattering the survivors and causing more deaths. Ludlow would ultimately survive all this, witnessing the male being tranquilized by Tembo. He took this opportunity to airlift the tyrannosaur onto the S.S. Venture, transporting it to San Diego while he personally had the infant captured and brought aboard his private jet to the mainland.
Both tyrannosaurs arrived to San Diego by the early morning, but while the juvenile was brought to the Jurassic Park amphitheater without issue, the adult was involved with an incident in transit that caused the Venture to collide with the InGen waterfront complex. Ludlow was initially shell-shocked by the incident and informed Drs. Ian Malcolm and Sarah Harding of where to find the juvenile, leading to both animals being brought back on board the Venture. Ludlow recovered and ordered the San Diego Police Department SWAT to kill the adult and capture the juvenile, but when he realized the juvenile was nearly back at the Venture, he set out to capture it himself. He followed its distress calls into the cargo bay and tried to coax the animal out. For a moment, it looked like it would come to him willingly, but instead it ran past him and reunited with its father, who had entered the cargo bay behind Ludlow while he was distracted. Ludlow attempted to flee, but was grabbed by his legs (it appears at least one leg broke due to the bite). Incapacitated and unable to escape, Ludlow was used by the adult to teach the juvenile how to make a kill. His remains were probably mostly eaten by the juvenile during transit to Isla Sorna.
Portrayal
Peter Ludlow is portrayed by Arliss Howard. He is not based on one specific character from Michael Crichton‘s novel The Lost World, though he does essentially fill the role of the novel’s Lewis Dodgson as the chief antagonist of the story. His motivation, however, is far more honest; in the film, he merely wants to save InGen from bankruptcy by opening a new park, while in the novel Dodgson intended to steal dinosaur eggs and use them for questionable purposes.
Ludlow also bears some similarity to the novel Jurassic Park‘s version of John Hammond, as he is a driven businessman who cares little for his own family and continues pursuing corporate profits even when failure appears unavoidable.
