This morning I got to go behind the scenes at the Charles Darwin Research Station's Tortoise Rearing Center to view a recently acquired and very unusual baby tortoise. A Galapagos National Park warden found the egg from which this albino hatched in a nest in the tortoise reserve area of the highlands of Santa Cruz Island. Albino tortoises apparently result from a genetic mutation and probably never survive in the wild. This individual is unfortunately quite weak; he avoids the sun and he may not live for very long.
Hundreds of baby tortoises have been hatched and raised in the Station's Rearing Center since it was established in the late 1960's. When they are a few years old, the young animals that are born at the Darwin Station are repatriated to the islands that their parents originally came from. The tortoise repatriation program has been extremely successful. The dangerously reduced adult population of 15 remaining animals from the island of Hood (or Española) have reproduced so successfully in captivity that there are now more than 1000 young tortoises living once again in the wild on that island. Visitors to the Galapagos Islands have the opportunity to tour part of the Tortoise Rearing Center in Puerto Ayora and have the chance to see some of the tiny tortoises that are waiting to be repatriated back to the wild.
