Jurassic Park: Third Iteration: Breeding Sites Summary & Analysis

Grant’s expertise in the breeding and nesting habits of dinosaurs allows him to postulate that the island boasts seven breeding sites, based on the numbers: two each for the raptors and compys and one each for the other three species. He further hypothesizes that bigger breeding animals have produced fewer young due to predation by the loose raptors and compys. No one has witnessed the wild raptors because they hunt nocturnally. Wu admits that the island initially had a large rodent population which has drastically shrunk over time—suggesting a food source for wild roaming dinosaurs—although no one ever investigated why.

As to the question of how the all-female dinosaurs became capable of breeding, Grant asks whether the geneticists filled in any gaps in the dinosaur DNA with frog DNA. Wu volunteers to check the records. To start figuring out how many dinosaurs may have escaped, Grant suggests surveying the nesting sites to estimate the number of hatched animals, then comparing this to the census of animals on the island.

The visitors prepare to split up. Ellie will stay with Dr. Harding to finish documenting the stegosaurus’s symptoms. Gennaro volunteers to join them. Malcolm and Grant prepare to return to the visitor center in the second vehicle, while Regis, Tim and Lex climb into the front car. To assuage Tim’s frustration at not being allowed to ride with Malcolm and Grant, Regis shows him how to operate the car’s night-vision goggles.

On the ride back, Grant expects Malcolm to feel vindicated, since events have proven his predictions. Instead, Malcolm admits fear. Mathematical theories show a sameness of things across different scales, he explains. And instead of demonstrating a linear quality, accident and unpredictability tend to rule human lives. People might not want to accept a series of wholly unpredictable encounters as life, but that’s the case. The sound of the children shouting over the intercom interrupts their conversation. Having caught a glimpse of the departing supply ship through his binoculars, Tim swears he saw a stowaway dinosaur on deck. The sea spray and gathering dust make it hard to see. But eventually, Grant confirms Tim’s sighting of at least two juvenile raptors.

In the control room, Hammond, Arnold, and Muldoon saw the Land Cruisers stop, but they can’t communicate with the guests via radio, possibly due to electrical interference from an approaching storm. When Arnold picks up the phone to call down to the dining room, he discovers that Nedry’s data transfer has commandeered all the park’s phone lines—both internal and external. Nedry apologizes, then stands up to get his own drink.

On the tour, Grant asks Regis how long the ship takes to reach the mainland. They have 18 hours to raise a warning, but they discover they can’t reach the control room or raise Dr. Harding on the walkie-talkie. They’re about 17 minutes from the base when the lights abruptly turn off and the cars—controlled by electrical tracks in the road—come to a halt.

In the control room, Arnold realizes that, although the visitor center has electricity, the electrical grid on the island’s perimeter has lost power. The vehicles, somewhere around the tyrannosaur paddock, must have stopped. He picks up a phone to call maintenance only to remember that Nedry has clogged up all the lines.

With the perimeter power out, all the security-card locks are disarmed. Nedry knew this would happen; he built secret entrances into his programming partly as a failsafe if someone locked up the system, partly to feed his ego. And then, when he became annoyed with InGen for demanding free, extensive modifications late in the project via a sort of corporate blackmail, the trapdoors became an insurance policy. Thus, when Lewis Dodgson approached him about stealing dinosaur embryos, he had both the motive and the opportunity. In the Fertilization Room, he stashes frozen embryos in his shaving cream can device. Then he goes to the basement, climbs into the remaining gas-powered Jeep, and heads for the dock.

In the control room, Arnold swears, causing Muldoon to turn, just missing seeing Nedry driving away in the Jeep. Arnold has realized that, in turning off the security system, Nedry has also disengaged the electric fences. Maybe nothing will happen; most of the animals have been shocked by the fences, and conventional wisdom says they probably won’t test their luck. Still, Muldoon decides to head out in the Jeep to collect the visitors before they do something stupid like leave the cars. When the power comes back on, the vehicles will restart automatically regardless of whether they are occupied or not. Congratulating himself on the foresight he showed by putting the rocket launcher in the Jeep already, Muldoon enters the garage to find the vehicle missing.