Jurassic nark!
Locals driven wild by roaring dinosaurs plead with attraction bosses to silence their robot creatures
WITH a name like Jurassic Kingdom, it was never an event that was going to slip by unnoticed.
But the roars of robot dinosaurs from a visitor attraction in Glasgow’s leafy West End have driven people living nearby to distraction.
Described as a ‘spectacular outdoor dinosaur experience’, Jurassic Kingdom at the Botanic Gardens features 30 full-scale prehistoric creatures.
The animatronics of the replicas of different species such as triceratops and tyrannosauras rex include moving arms and heads, blinking eyes, swaying tails, jaws that open wide – and roaring sound effects.
Organisers yesterday said they believed the event would be wellreceived because ‘everyone loves dinosaurs’.
But it has not gone down so well with locals who said the dinosaurs were too noisy and asked for the sound effects to be turned down.
Karen Leeson, who lives on nearby Wilton Street, said that regardless of she went in her flat she could still hear the roar.
Writing online she said: ‘I’m on Wilton Street and there’s wailing a couple of times a minute all day long.
‘I can even hear them inside my flat. I’ve really tried not to let it bother me but it does. No matter where I go I keep hearing it. I think they should give us free tickets as compensation.’
The discussion took place on a community forum and several other residents echoed Karen’s frustration.
One said: ‘First day I thought there might be someone in trouble.
‘Even considered calling the police... until the penny dropped. Any chance they can be turned down?’
‘I spoke to a friend with young children who said they were absolutely frightened of it, mainly because of the noise.’
Another resident, Gillian Gleeson, said: ‘I’ve tweeted them to turn it off.
‘They’ve tweeted this, “Did you know the parasaurolophus produced a trumpet-like sound, similar to elephants, for communiwhere cation and as a warning signal... #dinofacts”. At least we now know who the culprit is!’
Yesterday, Miss Leeson was relieved to have not heard any roars all day.
She said: ‘I think they’ve finally turned it down, thankfully. It was driving me up the wall.’
A neighbour said: ‘To be honest, it never really bothered me when you could hear it.
‘It would start quite early in the morning and would run until around 8pm but I couldn’t hear it if I was in the house. You’d have to go out into the street to make sure you heard it.’
Naz Kabir, events director of Jurassic Kingdom, confirmed that the volume of the loudest dinosaurs had been turned down.
He said: ‘Our production manager walked the perimeter of the Botanic Gardens to see which houses were closest to the venue and turned the volume on the dinosaurs closest to them down.
‘They’ve been turned down slightly and we’ve seen which ones have made the most noise and turned them down so that it can’t be heard from streets away.
‘Obviously we can’t turn them off completely because we’re an attraction and that’s not an option.
‘I understand residents might be getting fed up with the noise but we did post out free family tickets for the event so they could see what it is all about.
‘We have to get the balance between keeping visitors happy and meeting council requirements, which is difficult.
‘We first started getting complaints about it on Sunday and Monday was a bank holiday for us in England, so that’s why it has taken until today to resolve it.’
Jurassic Kingdom began at the weekend and continues in Glasgow till September 10.
‘No matter where I go I keep hearing it’ ‘It was driving me up the wall’