Santa Cruz Island is home to the largest Giant tortoises that inhabit this enchanted archipelago and we are ready to learn about their behavior. Before disembarking, as we got to the dock, we could see several brown pelicans on the mangrove forest and marine iguanas swimming.
Several Darwin’s finches moved from tree to tree, maybe looking for a mate or maybe for food, The cacti, Opuntias of different sizes, made an interesting walkway on our path to see the gentle giants.
The Charles Darwin Research Station and the National Park Service run the Breeding Centre. The two organizations have partnered to save the Giant tortoises of the Galapagos from going extinct. By saving the tortoises they have saved almost all reptiles.
The program started back in the 1960’s with the Española sub specie… numbers where going down due to the presence of introduced goats and donkeys to the Island. The mammals foraged the vegetation leaving the tortoises not only without food but also without shelter. After years of research and hard work the programs have been a 100% success. Today over 2000 young tortoises have been repatriated to their island of origin and are now reproducing in the wild without human intervention.
This is the reason why the Galapagos National Park Service, together with the Charles Darwin Foundation, are two of the most respected conservation institutions in the world.
Afternoon we scouted tortoises in the wild, which kept our group excited and busy. It was amazing to see them in their natural habitat and photographers had the opportunity to take amazing pictures. A bit of drizzle made the scene very dramatic, walking with these incredible, friendly creatures made as feel transported in time… maybe back a hundred years ago, when the tortoises roamed the islands by themselves…
