This was a day dedicated to giant tortoises on Santa Cruz Island because you cannot leave this group of Oceanic islands without seeing them—at the breeding center and in the wild. We don’t know exactly how many giant tortoises were here in the archipelago before humans arrived, but scientists estimate that the population was very close to half a million distributed all over the archipelago.
When Galapagos was discovered by Fray Thomas de Berlanga in 1535, this was considered to be an inhospitable place with no natural resources. But the real problem came later on with pirates, whalers and first settlers. Being away from their home country, these adventurous people started to collect the tortoises as a food source for centuries.
When Charles Darwin was here in Galapagos in 1835, he was also not very optimistic about the survival of theses giants. But with the establishment of the Galapagos National Park and the Charles Darwin Foundation in the mid-1900s and after decades of very hard work, we can very proudly say to the world that Galapagos is one of the most protected national parks on the whole planet.
This morning we visited the Charles Darwin Research Station where the breeding center is located. At this point we learned how this center works. With some populations, conservationists have to go into the field to collect tortoise eggs to be incubated artificially. After 70 or 90 days of incubation, the baby tortoises hatch and are placed inside enclosures and are further protected with frames at night to prevent them from being eaten by black rats. This process can last for two years until they are released into open areas where they are fed. In four or five years, they are ready to be repatriated to the home island from where they came as eggs.
This afternoon we had the opportunity to see one of the healthiest populations of giant tortoises in Galapagos in the highlands of Santa Cruz. This is just one population out of the ten different kinds of tortoises we have here in Galapagos. Our goal is to restore the giant tortoises’ dominance in this Oceanic archipelago for future generations to come.
