A Jurassic World coaster at Universal’s Islands of Adventure theme park has found itself facing that age-old problem of loose raptors.

Poised to be Florida’s fastest and tallest launch coaster when it debuts at Universal Orlando Resort this summer, the aptly named VelociCoaster has been disturbed by birds of prey since track construction began last year. Osprey, a protected species of large raptors native to the region, have been embarking on the fruitless effort of building nests in its “top hat” ascent for months, continually attempting to take up residence in the future path of a 70 mile-per-hour predator-themed attraction.

Alicia Stella, a local blogger and YouTuber known for exhaustively detailed coaster updates, had already followed VelociCoaster’s development for a year when she spotted something new on the tippy top of the track: life.

“Definitely looks like a bird of prey of some sort,” she says in a video posted of its first spotting back in August 2020. “So, technically, it’s a raptor. That’s a raptor nest on the VelociCoaster.”

In the months that followed, she would join local bloggers and writers in a crowd-sourced “osprey watch,” proving that even at a 110-acre theme park, the most captivating entertainment for fans is drama. @Bioreconstruct—a mysterious theme park photographer known for hard-to-get pictures and serious anonymity—has been there for all of it, creating an encyclopedic account of the ospreys’ whereabouts with near-daily updates on Twitter, which took on a meme of their own.

Naturally drawn to tall structures like utility poles, the hawk-like ospreys found an ideal perch on the record-setting, 155-foot tall track of the VelociCoaster. A pair of birds had been building nests, twig by twig, on the track since August. Unlike the dinosaurs who are ostensibly the raptor stars, ospreys pose no threat to humans; they exclusively eat fish, making the lagoon-adjacent coaster an ideal avian waterfront real estate they should be hesitant to leave.

Early efforts to discourage nesting were unsuccessful, as the birds painstakingly added branch after branch when nests did not take or were removed for safety concerns. Even a large blue tarp meant to dissuade the osprey was used for shelter, and it used its talons to rip the plastic almost immediately,” Stella said with a laugh. “The next morning, there's a big hole and a new nest in this, like, plastic-wrapped little home they made for her.” (According to Stella, the original osprey she spotted quickly lured a mate to her lagoon-front view—a romantic subplot for this unlikely Jurassic Park spinoff.)

In recent weeks, the two osprey appear to have permanently found safe refuge on a nearby nesting platform that meets Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission recommendations, a much-preferred alternative to a home with a coaster train running through it. When reached for comment, an official spokesperson from Universal Orlando Resort said, “We monitored the area to ensure that a nest was not established on the track, and that the osprey and our team members remained safe. We also consulted an environmental specialist as needed to help us handle the situation.”

This isn’t the first time life has gotten in the way of a theme park attraction. “To dissuade a bunch of nasty hornets that decided to set up camp at Lightning Rod, the headlining attraction at Dollywood in Tennessee, the park built a special cupola atop its lift hill,” explained Arthur Levine, a theme park journalist and coaster expert. And, just two years ago, VelociCoaster’s own park found its newest coaster plagued by a comically biblical swarm of bees. The situation became so dire that Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure, a multi-launch coaster themed to Rubeus Hagrid from the Harry Potter franchise, was forced to shut down operation for nearly two days.

If it can survive the menacing stare of raptors in nearby trees, VelociCoaster will open at Universal’s Islands of Adventure at Universal Orlando Resort later this summer. More than a traditional coaster, it’s rumored to include wild inversions, multiple raptor encounters—these of the intended dinosaur kind—as well as scenes within Jurassic World’s velociraptor paddock, where Chris Pratt’s Owen Grady trained his subjects in the film.

Jurassic World inspired a retheme of Universal Studios Hollywood’s Jurassic Park River Adventure ride at Universal Studios Hollywood in 2019, and Universal Beijing Resort will have an entire theme park land dedicated to the new blockbuster franchise when it opens later this year.

But it’s hard to imagine any upcoming entry in the movie franchise matching the entertainment value of five straight months of this.

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