The Velociraptor and Owen Grady – The bond and the IBRIS Project
The Integrated Behavioral Raptor Intelligence Study was a project to research the intelligence of velociraptors with different genetic strands under control of human. Owen Grady was hired to lead the IBRIS Project and train the young velociraptors.
Blue was created with the genetic information of a black-throated monitor lizard which gave her the distinctive Blue pattern. She was the largest velociraptor and the most intelligent as well.
The genes of the black-throated monitor lizard enabled Blue to give birth to her offspring Beta, the baby velociraptor in Jurassic World Dominion. This is called parthenogenesis which is an asexual reproduction by some monitor lizards.
The velociraptor Delta was created with more of avian DNA while Charlie was used with more of a green iguana. Although Owen Grady was imprinted to all of the four raptors Blue, Charlie, Delta and Echo, whenever Owen Grady showed weakness, the others would challenge him and attack him while only Blue would show sympathy and even snuggle into Owen.
Eventually Blue would even assemble the rest of the three velociraptors to pay attention to Owen Grady that was a remarkable achievement that the IBRIS Project personnel didn’t expect even Owen Grady.
Owen Grady and Blue
Although the velociraptor Blue was empathetic and even recognized Owen Grady as her companion, Owen Grady was always humble and respected the authority, intelligence and the sheer power that the velociraptor Blue had.
Blue was the only velociraptor that would show empathy and really bond with Owen Grady to an extent that she would even scold the other velociraptors to focus on Owen Grady. The mutual respect and trust built upon time between Blue and Owen Grady was strong.
Owen Grady despite the trust never let his guard down and never attempted to provoke the velociraptor Blue which led to the successful relationship between each other.
The velociraptor Blue attacked the Indominus Rex for Owen, repelled off the Indoraptor at the Lockwood Manor and later on even though she chose freedom instead of being under Owen’s protection, Blue has followed Owen Grady and even nested nearby with her offspring Beta.
Blue was not a relative with the Indoraptor – Why did Dr. Henry Wu ask for the capture of the velociraptor Blue
Eli Mills and Ken Wheatley tried to use this bond between Owen Grady and Blue to capture her on Isla Nublar. DR. Henry Wu believed that the genomic combination of the monitor lizard and the velociraptors were the best combination to make an obedient velociraptor species to tame and take advantage for humans so he requested the capture of Blue to make a better Indoraptor specimen.
Dr. Henry Wu considered the Indoraptor prototype as a failure as it was mentally instable and couldn’t abide to orders.
The Indoraptor didn’t have any relationship with the velociraptor Blue. Dr. Henry Wu thought the genomic information of Blue would be the key to make another hybrid Indoraptor that would be more obedient.
Alpha in Animal Behaviorism
The term ‘alpha’ refers to the highest ranking “individual” of an animal social group that shows dominance hierarchy which used to be known as the ‘pecking order’. The term ‘alpha’ doesn’t necessarily refer to a ‘leader’ and it simply is a synonym for 1st place, the most violent or most resourceful.
The misconception of the term ‘alpha’ may have come from the conception of bloody power games between animals. However, researchers have concluded that such the power struggle between the animals isn’t like the conception of how humans seek power or higher ranks.
Scientists even discovered that wolf packs don’t have such an alpha but they are rather more of family units. Thus, unlike common perception that wolves form a pack under a strong individual, this is not true and wolves would simply form a pack when a male mates with a female as a family.
Overall, animals lack the concept of a ‘leadership’ position or a hierarchy of status and alpha refers to an individual that has more access to resource or have more reproductive chances. Another concept of the lack of ‘social hierarchy’ is the queen of bees.
People believe that the bee hive colony is under the ‘leadership’ of a queen, however in reality the behaviors of the bees rather show that the ‘queen’ is more of a ‘reproductive slave’ by the hive mind of the bees to simply maintain the population of the bee colony.
Simians with more intelligence do show such 'alpha' social hierarchy characteristics possibly the velocirpators also did because they were highly intelligent.
However for other animals, the term ‘alpha’ and the misconception is already out of outdated and while animals in captivity may show such behaviors, wild animals don’t.
Imprinting
Imprinting is a type of animal learning behavior that is instinctive and immanent. The animal that would imprint doesn’t necessarily imprint onto something due to lessons or results of its action but it would rather imprint and learn onto something by its instincts.
Many birds with low intelligence would imprint onto the first animal that they see and consider them as a parent figure.
This behavior is referred as filial imprinting and commonly observed in chicken, goose and ducks. As birds are the descendants of dinosaurs and in fact still, birds belong to the theropod group of dinosaurs, dinosaurs may have had such imprinting behaviors as well.
For the IBRIS project where InGen researched on the intelligence and the behaviors of the velociraptors, the velociraptors at birth were imprinted onto Owen Grady. Along with the imprinting of the velociraptors and the long history of the velociraptors bonding with Owen Grady, Owen Grady has built credit with the velociraptors.
