Santa Cruz Island
In 1905 the California Academy of Sciences organized an expedition to the Galápagos, under the leadership of Mr. R. H. Beck, who had been a member of the Lila and Mattie expedition to the islands back in 1897. This party spent almost a year in the islands and gathered a tremendous quantity of specimens. Among others, they took six thousand skins of land birds. This was the largest collection ever made of animals from the Galápagos.
In 1959 the Ecuadorian government declared the Galápagos a National Park and teams of scientists, led by Victor Van Stralen and sponsored by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, created the Charles Darwin Research Station. Today’s picture shows the authorities and scientists at the inauguration of the Charles Darwin Research Station in 1964. The island of Santa Cruz is headquarters to both institutions, National Park and Darwin Research Station. The name Academy Bay was given to the town’s bay to honor the Californian expedition to the islands.
Now Puerto Ayora is the center of science, tourism and trade in the archipelago. There are nearly 20,000 inhabitants in this town, the largest settlement in the Galápagos. This year we expect close to 100,000 visitors to visit the Galápagos National Park, and among our intrepid explorers, we continue to receive guests from the California Academy of Sciences. There is a group from the Cal Academy on board the Polaris this week, led by Douglas Long and Laura Jamison. We are pleased to be sharing the wonders of these islands each day with these interested travelers and others like them on their visit to, what William Beebe once called, “the World’s End.”
In 1905 the California Academy of Sciences organized an expedition to the Galápagos, under the leadership of Mr. R. H. Beck, who had been a member of the Lila and Mattie expedition to the islands back in 1897. This party spent almost a year in the islands and gathered a tremendous quantity of specimens. Among others, they took six thousand skins of land birds. This was the largest collection ever made of animals from the Galápagos.
In 1959 the Ecuadorian government declared the Galápagos a National Park and teams of scientists, led by Victor Van Stralen and sponsored by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, created the Charles Darwin Research Station. Today’s picture shows the authorities and scientists at the inauguration of the Charles Darwin Research Station in 1964. The island of Santa Cruz is headquarters to both institutions, National Park and Darwin Research Station. The name Academy Bay was given to the town’s bay to honor the Californian expedition to the islands.
Now Puerto Ayora is the center of science, tourism and trade in the archipelago. There are nearly 20,000 inhabitants in this town, the largest settlement in the Galápagos. This year we expect close to 100,000 visitors to visit the Galápagos National Park, and among our intrepid explorers, we continue to receive guests from the California Academy of Sciences. There is a group from the Cal Academy on board the Polaris this week, led by Douglas Long and Laura Jamison. We are pleased to be sharing the wonders of these islands each day with these interested travelers and others like them on their visit to, what William Beebe once called, “the World’s End.”
