PHOTOS: Five Wilderness Explorer Stations Removed From Disney’s Animal Kingdom Due to Staffing Issues

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Five of the Wilderness Explorer badge stations have been removed from Disney’s Animal Kingdom, mainly due to a lack of staff. The map in the guidebook given to participating guests has been updated to no longer include the Asia, Africa, signaling, explorer, and ham radio badges.

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Here is what an old map looked like.

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Here is the new map with those stations removed.

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The large map at the main Wilderness Explorers station has not been updated.

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This is where guests could previously earn the “signaling” badge in DinoLand U.S.A.

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Signs have been removed from this post.

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Flags still hang above the location.

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In Asia, this is where guests could previously earn the “explorer” badge.

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The main Wilderness Explorer logo is still on the post, but the specific badge sign has been removed.

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According to a Cast Member, the experience is currently short-staffed.

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At this Wildlife Field Station, guests could earn multiple badges.

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The Asian culture badge has been removed from the map and signage for now, but guests can still earn other badges here.

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In addition to being generally short-staffed, the experience does not currently have cultural representatives for Asia and Africa and other Cast Members did not feel comfortable talking about a culture they are not part of. Until Cast Members more representative of those cultures are hired, the badges will not be available.

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As with the Asia field station, this Africa station has other badges available but not the African culture badge.

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The sign for the badge has been removed from this post for now.

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Cast Members used two different stations in Africa for the ham radio badge.

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The Cast Member we spoke to said that the ham radio badge was removed because it lacked relevance to the modern world.

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While it seems possible the other four badges will be available again someday, the ham radio badge may be gone for good.

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Have you become a Wilderness Explorer at Disney’s Animal Kingdom? Let us know what badges you got in the comments.

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The post PHOTOS: Five Wilderness Explorer Stations Removed From Disney’s Animal Kingdom Due to Staffing Issues appeared first on WDW News Today.