Santa Cruz Island
Today was a day dedicated to the Giants of the Galápagos Archipelago, this morning we visited the Charles Darwin Station, where they are helping bring back the Giant tortoise’ s dynasty. This program has been running for over forty years, already with great success since it was established. This process consists of going to the field and collecting the eggs to be artificially incubated. Once they hatch, we take care of the babies with food and the supervision of scientists. When the carapace gets over ten inches in diameter, they are placed in a training system for over a year before they are sent to their home island, where they came from as eggs.
It has been an extraordinary experience learning how the different populations are coming back to repopulate their home island.
In Galápagos we use to have fifteen populations of Giant tortoises, now five of them are gone forever. The last to be extinct were the ones from Pinta Island. In 1972 a male tortoise, Lonesome George, was found on the island. Since then, he became the symbol of conservation, and the most famous reptile on the planet. Unfortunately, he died a few months ago, leaving behind a message to the world. We need to make the right decisions; otherwise other species may become extinct as well. Galápagos is so unique and we want to keep it that way for future generations, and in the memory of Lonesome George.
For the afternoon, we headed to the highlands of Santa Cruz to explore and look for tortoises roaming in the wild, like they did before they were impacted by humans. What an experience, because we counted over thirty tortoises everywhere.
Not matter how many documentaries or pictures you see before coming to Galápagos, it will never give you the same experience as being here in contact with nature and surrounded by Galápagos endemic animals.
