Isla Sorna Aviary

Movies

For the Aviary originally planned for Jurassic Park, see Jurassic Park Aviary. For the Aviary seen in Jurassic World, see Jurassic World Aviary.

"It's a bird cage."

—Alan Grant^(src)

The Isla Sorna Aviary was a facility made by InGen designed to raise Pteranodon for Jurassic Park until they reached a certain age.

It made its first and only appearance in Jurassic Park III, after the protagonists met and entered this facility to protect themselves from a Spinosaurus attack, searching for an exit down the River. It was not mentioned in The Lost World and is unknown about the difference of its inhabitants seen in that film and those shown in Jurassic Park III.

Layout[]

Sorna Field Lab — The Isla Sorna Aviary observatory.

The Isla Sorna Aviary was placed in a canyon over a river, probably because it provided fish for its residents. The entrance, however, was on the top of the canyon, and it would take several flights of stairs to reach the bottom. Because of this placement, immense fog would be generated and engulf most of the aviary. A metal door kept the inhabitants from escaping and was kept locked at all times. Outside of this door, a barge was docked.

The Isla Sorna Aviary was connected to an observatory that could be used to enter it. The observatory was guarded by a large electric fence more advanced than the ones used in Jurassic Park. The building had three floors. The third floor was a watchtower, the second floor had two steel doors and the first floor had an area that had a stairway to the bridge that led to the aviary and an unknown location, all connected by a spiral staircase. Furthermore, at the end of the bridge that led to the bird cage were stairs to an elevated platform which in turn led to a walkway.

According to visual effects supervisor Jim Mitchell, the full-scale in-universe cliff wall of the aviary is 350 feet high and spans 3,000 feet.^[1]

History[]

Creation[]

InGen created the Isla Sorna Aviary sometime during the mid-late 1980s or early 1990s to raise Pteranodon Hatzegopteryx and possibly other pterosaurs, for their new dinosaur park Jurassic Park.^[2] When the inhabitants reached a certain age, they would be transported to Isla Nublar to live in InGen's dinosaur park, though pterosaurs such as Pteranodon weren't planned to be seen by the public eye until Phase 2 of Jurassic Park occurred in the future.^[3]

However, things turned sour when the Jurassic Park Incident cancelled Jurassic Park^[4] and when Hurricane Clarissa struck Isla Sorna, causing the workers on the island to abandon the animals they cared for.^[5] Unlike most of the prehistoric fauna on the island, the InGen workers did not free any of the Pteranodons; instead they kept them trapped in their enclosure^[6], presumably because the river running through the Aviary would provide a constant stream of fish for the Pteranodons, so they did not need to be freed. Though judging by the existence of wild Pteranodons on the island, there may have been some that were either freed, escaped the enclosure or just might have come from a different facility altogether.^[5]

Many parts of the aviary including the walkway and the fence that protected the observatory were damaged at an unknown date from either lack of care and old age or from Hurricane Clarissa.

By 2001, there were four adult Pteranodon and a nest of six juveniles.^[6]

Jurassic Park III[]

Rescue of Eric Kirby[]

Dr. Alan Grant located the aviary's barge while he was with Eric Kirby.

Soon afterward, Dr. Alan Grant and Eric Kirby met up with Amanda and Paul Kirby and Billy Brennan on the opposite sides of the Isla Sorna Aviary's large lookout fence. While they were expressing their joy of being reunited, the vicious Spinosaurus attacked Dr. Grant and Eric. The two evaded the Spinosaurus by crawling through a puncture in the fence; but when the Spinosaurus seemed to have given up on the humans, it charged through the fencing and got to the other side.

The group immediately rushed to get inside the building behind them. Paul and Dr. Grant locked the steel doors of the observatory, which halted the Spinosaur's pursuit of them and it soon returned to the jungle. While inside, Grant discovered why a Velociraptors had followed his group. Billy Brennan had stolen their eggs that they had come across earlier. Afterward, the group continued their escape from the island and descended the spiral staircase but when Dr. Grant tried to go down the stairs to the unknown area, they suddenly collapsed on him from a mixture of factors, causing him and the other survivors to take the nearby bridge.

Dr. Grant was the first to cross with Amanda Kirby being the second. But as the thick fog faded, Dr. Grant discovered that they were in a birdcage. As soon as he made this discovery, a Pteranodon snatched Eric Kirby so it could feed him to its young. Billy bravely went to save Eric by paragliding after him with the rest of the humans running desperately through the walkway trying to reach the boy as well. However, they reached a part of the walkway that was missing so they were unable to reach the rest of it. While they were stuck a Pteranodon attacked them, but when the flying reptile got inside the corridor it collapsed from the giant pterosaur's weight, which most likely killed it.

Eventually, the humans, minus Billy who had sacrificed himself to save his fellow survivors, escaped once they reached the barge, but the steel door that Amanda Kirby and her son Eric used to get out of the Isla Sorna Aviary opened itself shortly after she had failed to lock it. This allowed three adult Pteranodons to depart the enclosure they spent most of their lives in.

The Pterosaurs flew to Canada, where Vic Hoskins and the InGen Security Division were sent in to handle the "clean up."^[7] The pterosaur juveniles that were left behind for some reason died from starvation or some other means.