Five of us were on the same 10:45 AM flight so we had an early start at the Charles Darwin Research Station where the Galapagos National Park's turtle breeding program is headquartered. Here we saw iguanas and baby turtles, but everyone wanted to see its most famous resident, Lonesome George.
Lonesome George is the last surviving land tortoise from the island of La Pinta. It was thought that land tortoises had gone extinct but George was accidentally discovered in late 1971. Scientists recruited two female land tortoises from a different island (they are genetically similar to La Pinta land tortoises but still different) in hopes they would breed, but 105 year old George showed no interest in mating with them for decades until relatively recently. In recent years, perhaps the loneliness got to Lonesome George and he mated with the females. Disappointingly, none of the eggs hatched. George himself actually stepped on one of the eggs and later, when the remaining eggs failed to hatch, scientists open them and discovered that none of the eggs had ever been viable. Today Lonesome George is the last of his kind and it looks as if it will remain that way.
There is a more optimistic outlook for other varieties of tortoises, fortunately. The breeding program has been successful over the years, introducing thousands of tortoises to the wild. The process starts with the eggs. Males are able to mate year round once they reach sexual maturity but females will mate only once every five to ten years. The temperature of the eggs determines the sex of the turtles, so most eggs at the breeding center are exposed to 29.5 degrees Celsius to result in females and eggs kept at 28 degrees Celsius become males. In the wild, all seven eggs will either be male or female. This artificially created sex imbalance ensures that there are always plenty of females able to become pregnant at any given time. The baby turtles stay in contained terrariums until they are two years old and will remain at the breeding center until they are four to six years old. By then their shells will be 20-25 centimeters so they are able to survive on their own as they are no longer threatened by rats and other predators. Because different species of baby tortoises live together in the terrariums, scientists paint colored numbers in their shells to make sure each tortoise goes to the correct island.
The center has a few other varieties of tortoises as well.
The center's final exhibit was about the steps currently being taken to preserve the Galapagos. Since 1998, all incoming people and cargo have been inspected to ensure that no foreign animals or seeds are introduced. At the airport in Quito, my larger backpack was X rayed and my smaller one was hand searched for this reason. If you'd like to help support the Galapagos islands, the Darwin Research Station suggests visiting darwinfoundation.org or galapagospark.org.
A sea lion skeleton.
Our time at the center went by far too fast, as did the entire trip. Before I knew it, we had boarded a bus, a ferry, and another bus to the airport and were flying back to the mainland.
I have done my best here to accurately convey some of what I've learned from the Galapagos. Please let me know if you spot any inaccuracies!
The Galapagos Islands are a land of surprising intensity: everything is "more" than you initially realize. No matter how strong you think the sun is, it is much stronger. No matter how low you think the ceiling above your bunk is, it is much lower. No matter how hungry you think you are at snack time, you are actually much hungrier than you thought (especially when it's yuca bread!). No matter how cute you think the sea lions are, you will inevitably find one that takes cuteness to a whole new level. And no matter how nice you think your fellow passengers are, your time together reveals them to be a terrific batch of travelers and you know you have been fortunate to share such a great experience with them.
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