Santa Cruz Island
Hello from Galapagos to those of you who have already been here and those who are planning to come in the near or distant future! Today was a “tortoise day.” We saw tortoises at the Charles Darwin Research Station where they are being bred in captivity and then repatriated to the islands of their origin. What was particularly interesting was that we got a chance to see the baby tortoises, not just the adults.
“Lonesome George” is no doubt the most famous tortoise of all. He is the last tortoise from Pinta Island and now lives in a rocky corral at the Station. Pinta was overrun with so many introduced goats that the tortoises were pushed to the very brink of extinction. These days ole George is not so lonely anymore—he has two “girlfriends” from Wolf Volcano on Isabela Island. You may be wondering what is going on between George and his girlfriends…unfortunately, not very much at all.
We saw another species at CDRS that is being raised in captivity and is also unique to this Archipelago: the land iguanas. Like the tortoises, land iguana populations have been decreased by predation and competition from feral animals.
We walked through the town of Puerto Ayora, shopping and sight seeing and then we had lunch in the highlands. We spent the remainder of the afternoon hiking around a pit crater (at Los Gemelos) searching for woodpecker finches and brilliant vermilion flycatchers (see today’s picture) and visiting a farm where we found tortoises in their natural habitat. We were thrilled to find over 40 tortoises and once again all agree that it was yet another fabulous day!
Hello from Galapagos to those of you who have already been here and those who are planning to come in the near or distant future! Today was a “tortoise day.” We saw tortoises at the Charles Darwin Research Station where they are being bred in captivity and then repatriated to the islands of their origin. What was particularly interesting was that we got a chance to see the baby tortoises, not just the adults.
“Lonesome George” is no doubt the most famous tortoise of all. He is the last tortoise from Pinta Island and now lives in a rocky corral at the Station. Pinta was overrun with so many introduced goats that the tortoises were pushed to the very brink of extinction. These days ole George is not so lonely anymore—he has two “girlfriends” from Wolf Volcano on Isabela Island. You may be wondering what is going on between George and his girlfriends…unfortunately, not very much at all.
We saw another species at CDRS that is being raised in captivity and is also unique to this Archipelago: the land iguanas. Like the tortoises, land iguana populations have been decreased by predation and competition from feral animals.
We walked through the town of Puerto Ayora, shopping and sight seeing and then we had lunch in the highlands. We spent the remainder of the afternoon hiking around a pit crater (at Los Gemelos) searching for woodpecker finches and brilliant vermilion flycatchers (see today’s picture) and visiting a farm where we found tortoises in their natural habitat. We were thrilled to find over 40 tortoises and once again all agree that it was yet another fabulous day!
