Cerro Dragon and Daphne Major
Santa Cruz Island is a vast place that is well known for its diversity of wildlife and flora. The eroded volcanos at the northwest side of this island create the perfect landscape for the unique reptiles that prefer dry zone vegetation. The land iguanas in this particular site were on the brink of extinction because of feral dogs, goats, pigs, cats and even donkeys. The iguanas survived, thanks to a small group of researchers who decided to reproduce them in captivity; however there was not much information about this population and it took many years to take a good initiative in the conservation status of this particular species.
Almost 95% of the feral dogs and most pigs were removed from Dragon Hill, but goats were still there, causing low impact to the wildlife. This was a good time to reintroduce the young iguanas that were hatched in captivity. In the past decade censuses have shown the increase of the almost-extinct land iguanas and almost 1860 members of this species were reported to be alive and successfully reproducing. By the year 2007 the reproduction program was canceled. The efforts of conservation were the keys to their survival.
Early this morning our expedition leader Cindy gave us the weather update. We walked over the rocky trails in search of land iguanas. We hadn’t hiked very far when the first one was found right in the middle of the trail. We also had good sightings of lava lizards and some juvenile Darwin finches.
At the Guy Fawkes Islets, we had some good snorkeling, but then some bottlenose dolphins suddenly appeared – this was a rare coincidence that occurred twice today. In the afternoon we headed west toward the Beagles Rocks in search of cetaceans. Our captain, John Zurita, decided to turn back, as the next place was a few miles away. Daphne Major and Minor, old volcanos well known by our visitors, were in the distance. Once again dolphins appeared and joined us in our circumnavigation around the rocks with and incredible display.
