Santa Cruz Island
We have arrived to the most populous island in the Galápagos. Santa Cruz Island was colonized in the 1930’s and here we find the Headquarters of the Galápagos National Park Administration and the Charles Darwin Research Center.
These two institutions have been working together since their creation for the conservation of the unique species of Galápagos and their ecosystems. Scientists and Park Rangers study the conditions of the animals and plants, in order to help in eradication programs, protection programs or even Environmental Education to get the local communities involved in the process as one of the most important parts of conservation.
Most of the work is done in the field, but here we find a captive breeding center of Galápagos land tortoises. For many years, these gigantic animals have been the subject of predation by human beings like pirates and buccaneers, then whalers, scientific expeditions, and other people. They took hundreds of them away, up to the point where all tortoises disappeared from three islands and were close to extinction on others.
The first action to recover these numbers was to restore native populations of Galápagos giant tortoises in captivity, taking eggs or hatchlings from different islands and keeping them until they were able to survive in the wild. More than 5,000 tortoises have been repatriated since 1965 on about four islands with great success.
We were delighted this afternoon to see these incredible creatures roam amongst the green vegetation in the highlands, peacefully feeding on grasses or other native plants that grow in the humid areas of Santa Cruz.
What an outstanding experience! We hope their dynasty can be saved so that the future generations have the possibility to enjoy them as much as we did today.
