Santa Cruz Island
We reached the southern part of Santa Cruz Island early this morning, and after breakfast, we prepared to visit the world-famous Charles Darwin Research Station. The main highlight was to witness the successful captive breeding program which has brought those wonderful relics, the giant tortoises, back from the brink of extinction. During the visit, we encountered some of the largest land tortoise races that we have in this archipelago, including the unforgettable Lonesome George, the most famous tortoise in Galápagos who is from the northern island of Pinta and has remained alone, last of his race. We saw him walking around and chasing his female, and for an exciting moment we thought he might attempt to repopulate the island with Pinta tortoises. However, his intentions were rather less romantic than mating, as he turned around and bit them! Lonesome George is now about eighty years old and seems not to be in a hurry to reproduce - after all, he has another hundred years or so to keep trying!
In the afternoon, we visited the highlands of Santa Cruz Island. This island has a healthy population of about 2,500 land tortoises living on the wild, that migrate seasonally between breeding grounds in the lowlands and feeding ground in the highlands. We came across several individuals walking amongst the endemic vegetation and making some strange sounds that took many of our guests by surprise.
The tortoises we have on Santa Cruz belong to a type called the dome shape; they are the biggest and heaviest tortoises in the archipelago and can weigh about six hundred pounds - is that not amazing? One of the reasons these land tortoises survive on this particular island was because they were too heavy to be carried many miles by sailors and buccaneers. These tended to take smaller ones from small islands (such as Pinta) that were more easily carried to their ships. Nowadays, this population is growing at a good rate thanks to the successful program run by the breeding center we visited.
We reached the southern part of Santa Cruz Island early this morning, and after breakfast, we prepared to visit the world-famous Charles Darwin Research Station. The main highlight was to witness the successful captive breeding program which has brought those wonderful relics, the giant tortoises, back from the brink of extinction. During the visit, we encountered some of the largest land tortoise races that we have in this archipelago, including the unforgettable Lonesome George, the most famous tortoise in Galápagos who is from the northern island of Pinta and has remained alone, last of his race. We saw him walking around and chasing his female, and for an exciting moment we thought he might attempt to repopulate the island with Pinta tortoises. However, his intentions were rather less romantic than mating, as he turned around and bit them! Lonesome George is now about eighty years old and seems not to be in a hurry to reproduce - after all, he has another hundred years or so to keep trying!
In the afternoon, we visited the highlands of Santa Cruz Island. This island has a healthy population of about 2,500 land tortoises living on the wild, that migrate seasonally between breeding grounds in the lowlands and feeding ground in the highlands. We came across several individuals walking amongst the endemic vegetation and making some strange sounds that took many of our guests by surprise.
The tortoises we have on Santa Cruz belong to a type called the dome shape; they are the biggest and heaviest tortoises in the archipelago and can weigh about six hundred pounds - is that not amazing? One of the reasons these land tortoises survive on this particular island was because they were too heavy to be carried many miles by sailors and buccaneers. These tended to take smaller ones from small islands (such as Pinta) that were more easily carried to their ships. Nowadays, this population is growing at a good rate thanks to the successful program run by the breeding center we visited.
