When Disney Cruise Line opened her new destination of the island in the Bahamas, Disney Lookout Cay in Lighthouse Point, it wasn’t just a holiday place for visitors to the island. On the other hand, in coordination with its team of animals, science and environment (ASE), the brand launched an important conservation project that combined the biology of wildlife with modern technology, including telemetry radio and 3D printing.
While Disney Lookout Cay opened in June 2024, planning had been in progress long before that, with the ASE conservation team included from the beginning. A key decision was that Disney would not develop more than 16% of the earth.
“We were going to leave a lot of critical habitat, such as forest habitat, intact for animals that already lived there,” said Lauren Pmen Pumis, a technology for conservation and science of the Asey Asey team.
“We create an environmental impact analysis before any construction began,” said Puishys. That later became an environmental management plan, which focused on learning about the bird population on the island and protecting them.
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The team identified key areas on the island that would remain intact based on where birds nest, migrate or fed, all gathered through field work in the field. “You are collecting every bird you see, every bird you hear, and you are only writing this to make observations about how many of these birds are in this region,” Puishys said.
However, a species rapidly emerged as important: the great lizard cuckoo. “They are loud, they are really great,” Puishys explained, calling them “incredibly intelligent.” Now, to trace a population, in terms of patterns when they move on the island and where they chose to nest, the pionhys and the team combined the old ones with the new ones.
In this case, the team resorted to the art of 3D printing to approach the bird species in question, and then, through the telemetry radio, it mapped them on the island.
“I need a very specific bird,” Puishys recalled to have told his colleague, José Domínguez, member of the Ase of Disney behavior team. Although a variety of enrichment elements for the Disney Animal Kingdom Theme Park is modeled, it did not necessarily had experience modeling birds, so it asked other Disney expert teams that they did.
Disney has equipment, as expected, well versed in 3D modeling using cors and tools such as blender. “They were like, ‘Oh, absolutely, I would love to work on this,'” explained Domínguez.
They collaborated for months, refining the model through regular zoom calls. “Lauren provided his opinion on whether it was too big or if he needs an additional finger, things like that,” Domínguez said. “Eventually, we reach the shape of the desired model, the great lizard cuckoo.”
The model was printed on PLA, a plastic based on plants, which Dominguez said is what Disney usually uses for implementations in “behavior -based enrichment.” Then, the model was covered with the same lasting outdoor paint used in all properties. More specifically, “a painting resistant to UV -based UV -based rays in the outdoor acrylic, and then with a transparent protective coating at the top.
The result? A birdfish along with audio recordings of real bird calls. It worked and was deployed.
“We had it there with the speaker below, and we had two different types of calls there,” Puishys said. “At one point, a great lizard cuckoo of a great lizard called another … so he was actually trying to communicate with the model, which was incredible to see.”
We have infrastructure around the property in the roofs of buildings and cell towers that are really created to collect that signal
Lauren Puishys, a conservation and science technology with the Ase de Disney team
Finally, a bird approached the lure and Puishys was ready for it. “I was in the forest, out of view of the cuckoo but in view of the model, so I could see it myself. And then everything I had to do was get out of the forest, and the bird was on the net.”
From there, the equipment attached a radio label with solar energy to track the bird. “So there are small solar panels with a small antenna, and that is broadcasting a radiofrequency of 434 megahertios,” Puishys said. “We have infrastructure around the property in the roofs of buildings and cell towers that is really created to collect that signal, which has a number of letters and an associated eight -digit code for that animal.”
Thanks to the label and the infrastructure installed around the island in an inductive way, the Puishys can now track bird movements from their desk in Florida.
“We work taking everything out of the cloud with an API key through the company, and we can download everything to my desk using Rstudio,” he said. “We have now had it from the previous construction and now we have more than 35 million data points associated with this.”
We have now had it from the pre-construction and now we have more than 35 million data points associated with this
Lauren Puishys, a conservation and science technology with the Ase de Disney team
These data are captured through a highly structured variety of nodes throughout the island, with approximately 25 of them spaced about 400 meters away.
In addition, the data is stored in those nodes, then they are sent to the sensor station, which processes and charges through a cellular network so that the team can access it from anywhere. That includes the Puishys desktop in Florida, and are the largest amount of data that the ASE team has compiled in a terrestrial species.
For Puishys, the most exciting part is not just the success of the project: it is how early they were brought. “Honestly, I think our participation as a conservation team in the development of Disney Lookout Cay was our greatest jump,” Pumishys said. “It surprised me a little … and it was a great part about why I was so happy to join the team and help with the project.”
The hope is that this approach, one that combines science, technology and collaboration, becomes a workforce for future projects. “We hope it has worked well enough so that we can be an example or a good model for other construction projects in the future,” said Puishys.
