Day 6 (1/6/20):
By 6am this morning I was waiting to get on a speed boat to travel back to Santa Cruz Island. As I waited at the dock I was in awe of the nature surrounding me. Pelicans dove into the water to catch their breakfast and seals lounged on rocks. I knew I was going to miss Isabella island but I was looking forward to seeing and learning more on Santa Cruz. After arriving at Santa Cruz we walked from the doc to the Charles Dawriwn Research Center. We discussed a lot while touring the research center, focusing on tortoises. After visiting a reserve and a breeding center it was interesting to be at the research center which also has a breeding component. The research center is home to Lonesome George, a tortoise species from Pinta island that is the last of its kind. George passed away in 2012 but his body was preserved since he is so significant. We had to stand in a cool room for 2 minutes to acclimatize before seeing the taxidermy. There were once 15 species of land tortoises in the Galapagos but only 11 species survive today. George was found when he was approximately 60 years old and brought to the Charles Darwin Research Center. Since George was the last of his species they hoped to mate him with a similar sub species and eventually hoped overtime to get another “pure” Pinta island tortoise. The research center put George in a corral with three females but no mating activity occurred. Scientists proposed that this may be because he was isolated for so long that he was not aware of the process. The research center then contacted the San Diego zoo requesting one of their male tortoises, which was originally from the island Espanola, and placed this tortoise in the same corral as George and the females. George saw how to mate and mated with the females but the eggs never hatched. This could be because the females were of a different subspecies or because of George’s age.
The tortoise that was introduced to the research center from the San Diego zoo was called Diego and he remained at the research center until January 13th, 2020. He remained at the center due to his high fertility. Diego significantly helped repopulate Espanola island with tortoises, many say that he saved his species. We saw Diego the tortoise just a few days before he was released back into the wild! Even at an old age of about 100 years old he is still fertile and active which is unusual for tortoises. After visiting Diego I was glad to hear that the Espanola tortoise population was saved from extinction. However, I wonder in the future if having the DNA of one specific male tortoise will result in decreased genetic diversity which could put the population at risk.
The tortoise that was introduced to the research center from the San Diego zoo was called Diego and he remained at the research center until January 13th, 2020. He remained at the center due to his high fertility. Diego significantly helped repopulate Espanola island with tortoises, many say that he saved his species. We saw Diego the tortoise just a few days before he was released back into the wild! Even at an old age of about 100 years old he is still fertile and active which is unusual for tortoises. After visiting Diego I was glad to hear that the Espanola tortoise population was saved from extinction. However, I wonder in the future if having the DNA of one specific male tortoise will result in decreased genetic diversity which could put the population at risk.