Galapagos - Darwin Research Center, Santa Cruz Island
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sun 9 Mar 2008 13:43
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00:44.827S 90:18.414W
On Saturday (3/8), in the midst preparation for our
longest sailing leg (2,900 miles), we squeezed in a quick walking tour of the
Darwin Research Center, which is just down the road from the town of Puerto
Ayora on Santa Cruz Island.
The research center is famous for its Galapagos
tortoise repopulation project. Originally, there were fourteen species of
the giant tortoise here in the Galapagos Islands. The early European
visitors to the islands (pirates, whalers, fishermen, explorers) loved that the
tortoises weren't afraid of humans, and proceeded to decimate the tortoise
population by taking as many of them as they pleased to feed the men on their
sailing ships while voyaging. Today there are only eleven species of giant
tortoises left. Three species are completely extinct and one species is
hanging on by a thread with only one tortoise living. This particular
tortoise's name is Lonesome George, and he has been living at the research
center for years (tortoises live a good, long time as long as we humans let
them). The research center constantly tries to get Lonesome George
interested in some closely related (in a genetic sense) females, but he has not
been interested in the whole process of reproduction whatsoever. Cloning
will be used as a last resort to save Lonesome George's species, but
the center is not very excited about the expense and low probability of
success associated with cloning.
We did catch a glimpse of Lonesome George, but he
was too far away for a good picture. Instead, we got loads of other
marvelous beasts to pose for us. The center is set up such that visitors
like us are allowed to walk directly through the natural tortoise 'corrals' or
pens. It doesn't feel like a pen at all as the walls are barely
visible behind the vegetation. A walk through the tortoise coral felt
like a walk through the woods - except that we literally crossed paths
with giant reptiles.
Pictures 1 and 2 are of a few girl turtles we ran
into along the way. Pictures 3, 4 and 5 are all of the same
gargantuan turtle. We loved him so much we hung out with him for a
while and finished a complete photography session. We saw quite a few
other turtles, but none compared with the subject of pictures 3, 4 and
5. He was overwhelmingly impressive.
The center also studies the indigenous iguanas
and picture 6 features the fattest iguana we've seen so far. He
looks a little bit like our fat cat Peaches that my sister Margy and her husband
Rick are so kindly looking after for us. I wonder if Peaches would
enjoy having a giant iguana around to play with. It might make her
feel good to have someone around that is chubbier than she is.
That's it for giant turtle pictures.
Anne
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