Santa Cruz Island
We spent the whole day exploring the island of Santa Cruz, which is the second largest of this archipelago and has the largest human population. It is one of the places with easy access to look for tortoises, and today our guests had a great time watching them in the wild.
These islands have been famed for their giant tortoises ever since their discovery, and these enormous creatures continue to be the best known of the Galapagos animals. Many of the giant tortoise populations in the Galapagos are not large and are still at risk from introduced mammals. These are in danger of extinction, unless man helps to redress the balance. Fortunately much has been done over the last twenty years. And this morning we witnessed the protection efforts of the Galapagos National Park together with the Charles Darwin Research Station, as we toured the facilities and learned more about the captive-breeding program of these gargantuan animals, before seeing them in their natural habitat this afternoon.
We spent the whole day exploring the island of Santa Cruz, which is the second largest of this archipelago and has the largest human population. It is one of the places with easy access to look for tortoises, and today our guests had a great time watching them in the wild.
These islands have been famed for their giant tortoises ever since their discovery, and these enormous creatures continue to be the best known of the Galapagos animals. Many of the giant tortoise populations in the Galapagos are not large and are still at risk from introduced mammals. These are in danger of extinction, unless man helps to redress the balance. Fortunately much has been done over the last twenty years. And this morning we witnessed the protection efforts of the Galapagos National Park together with the Charles Darwin Research Station, as we toured the facilities and learned more about the captive-breeding program of these gargantuan animals, before seeing them in their natural habitat this afternoon.
