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| Darth Vader loves choking Animatronic Hippos to death with the dark side of the Force. |
Greetings Hippo Heroes! Another summer has passed in our constant fight to save the Animatronic Hippos here in Anaheim. We were fortunate that we were able over the last few months to make headway on a project very near and dear to our hearts. As you may remember 4 years ago, when we launched our online campaign, we revealed our plans for the Hippo Relocation Program. Our initial plans were to petition for the hippos to be relocated to other "safer" waterways in the Magic Kingdom. Our team spent many months doing research in the field to find our beloved animatronic animals a new home.
We initially gravitated towards relocation to other water-based attractions. Pirates of the Caribbean and Splash Mountain both being obvious choices for both proximity to the jungle and the already thriving populations of animatronic animals in each attraction. Our teams conducted more research during our refined search and came to the conclusion that neither of the two rides infrastructure could support the demanding needs of such a large animatronic creature as the Jungle Cruise Hippos.
Pirates of the Caribbean was very quickly taken off of the list. Although there were several large lagoons that our Hippos would have found to be very spacious, we had to decline due to the amount of firearms present. We also had reason to believe that the animatronic pirates, who primarily inhabit the space, have even less regard for animatronic life than Jungle Cruise Skippers. Personally I believe that the Animatronic Pirates are in desperate need of rehabilitation for their flagrant substance abuse problems. But I will save that blog post for AnimatronicAlcoholicsAnonymous.com.
Splash Mountain was not ideal because of the narrow waterways. Although they are quite friendly, Animatronic hippos could quite easily overturn a log in such a narrow space. In addition the animatronic animal population of Splash Mountain is quite large and there really was not enough room for a hippo to live comfortably.
So we started back at square one and continued our search. It wasn't until early this year that we finally set our eyes on The Rivers of America.
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| The Mark Twain Riverboat makes it's way along the peaceful waterways of the Rivers of America. |
The Rivers of America was the ideal choice. Large waterways, peaceful atmosphere, and no danger of being shot at by trigger happy skippers. We began to pursue this option and were doing so without interference until last week.
A week ago, Disney announced plans to shut down Big Thunder Ranch, Disneyland Railroad, and all shows and attractions on the Rivers of America for 18 months to make way for construction of their new Star Wars Land. The ideal relocation spot, near the back North-East corner of the river, will be removed and the train tracks will be moved south to make way for the expansion. Nearly a quarter of the rivers will be removed to make way for Star Wars.
Everyone here at the AAHCS is frustrated by this announcement. We will not be able to resume our relocation efforts until July 2017 at the earliest. We need all of your continued support more than ever during this dark time. We must save the Animatronic Hippos before it is too late!!!
Thank you all.
SAVE THE HIPPOS!!!
Caitlin Wahlstrom
Co-Founder
Jeremy Kohrs
Co-Founder
Caitlin Wahlstrom
Co-Founder
Jeremy Kohrs
Co-Founder
