Galapagos Islands: Giant Tortoise Restoration Initiative
By Jieun Woo
With over 7 billion people in the world, humans have made many different impacts in the world. While convenient for our economy and comfort, most of these impacts have been detrimental to the environment, especially in terms of ecosystems. We have damaged natural habitats, introduced invasive species, and poached animals, and these actions not only cause species to become endangered, it has also hurt our own health. Healthy ecosystems provide us the purified air we breathe, a clean water system, and many other benefits. That healthy ecosystem is dependent upon plant and animal species and when a species is lost, it triggers the collapse of the ecosystem. While humans have hurt ecosystems, it is not yet destroyed, and some people are trying to make an effort to save it. We can see this endeavor in the Galapagos Islands where there are several projects dedicated to restoring the island. The Giant Tortoise Restoration Initiative is one of them.
There are countless endangered species in the world, including the giant tortoise in the Galapagos Islands. According to the IUCN Red List, six of these tortoise species are considered Critically Endangered, three Endangered, three Vulnerable, and two Extinct. The goal of the Giant Tortoise Restoration Initiative is to restore tortoise populations to their historical distribution and numbers across Galapagos, even on islands where tortoises went extinct. To achieve this goal, the Galapagos Conservatory and the Galapagos National Park Directorate have divided the effort into four main project areas: research and conservation on targeted islands, breeding and rearing threatened tortoise species, repopulation of islands where tortoises went extinct, and tortoise-human interactions.
1) Research and conservation on targeted islands
The Galapagos Conservancy tracks each tortoise species and keeps records of the history behind each species. If any species appears to struggle, they try to find the best solution to help them.
This map above of the Galapagos Islands describes each tortoise population on an island.
2) Breeding and rearing threatened tortoise species
Currently, there are three tortoise centers in the Galapagos where they rear young tortoises until they are five years of age in order to help increase the chances of survival: the Santa Cruz Tortoise Center, the Isabela Tortoise Center, and the San Cristóbal Tortoise Center. This method of captive rearing has been used since 1965 to restore threatened tortoise populations of 9 of 11 surviving species. By the end of 2017, more than 7,000 juvenile tortoises had been returned to their island of origin.
3) Repopulation of islands where tortoises went extinct
As seen in the picture below, there are three islands in the Galapagos where tortoises have gone extinct. Tortoises went extinct on Floreana and Santa Fe Islands in the mid-1800s and on Pinta Island in 2012, with the death of Lonesome George. However, with the use of genetic analysis, the closest species to the extinct species can be found and released onto the islands where the species went extinct to repopulate it. Steps have been taken towards a successful re-establishment of a reproductive tortoise population on all three of the islands and those efforts continue to be tracked.
4) Tortoise-Human Interactions
With the increase in giant tortoise populations and human populations on the three main inhabited islands, Santa Cruz, San Cristóbal, and Isabela, greater potential for interactions, and even conflicts between the two, arises. In order to help those interactions to be safer for the animals, the tortoise centers have developed official relationships with several landowners for both conservation and tourism purposes. In 2018, a regular monitoring system was developed for all tortoises in farmlands where there are tourism operations on Santa Cruz. Galapagos National Park rangers visit these farms weekly to examine the overall conditions and the health of the tortoises.
Benefits of this Project
This project will help island restoration, as these growing tortoise populations will provide ecosystem “engineering” by trampling excess vegetation, opening areas, and dispersing seeds, which helps to recover ecosystem processes and provides improved habitat conditions for other native species. This project also has social benefits since even though this project is focused on one area, the Galapagos Islands, it also brings many people around the world together to see the efforts. It is also a project that helps educate many students about endangered species and the environment. This conservation effort not only saves ecosystems, but also brings in economic benefits through the tourism industry.
For more information on this initiative, as well as other projects on saving different organisms, go to https://www.galapagos.org/.