This morning we visited the Charles Darwin Research Station and stopped to view the baby tortoises that are being raised in captivity at the Tortoise Rearing Center. Everyone who visits Galapagos hopes to see tortoises while they are here, as giant tortoises are without a doubt the most representative animals of these islands. After all, "galapagos" originates from the old Spanish word for a saddle - a "galapago". Because of their saddle-like carapace, early sailors named the tortoises "galapagos" and the islands soon also took this name.
Tortoise eggs are collected by park wardens from natural nesting areas where eggs and hatchling tortoises are in danger of being eaten by the introduced predators that are found on some of the islands. Black rats, cats, dogs and pigs all readily eat both eggs and baby tortoises. On some islands there is no recruitment into the wild tortoise populations because of the presence of large numbers of these introduced predators.
The collected eggs are carefully transported to Santa Cruz Island where they are incubated at the Darwin Station. Then the hatchling tortoises are raised in enclosures where lava rocks and cindery soil simulate the animal's natural habitat. The little tortoises, like the ones in this photograph, are kept for several years in captivity. They are fed on a diet of natural vegetation similar to what they would have eaten if they had hatched in the wild, and when they are big enough to withstand predation by feral mammals, they are returned to the islands from which they were taken.
