Isla Santa CruzJun 6, 2009
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Area Map
Morning Route
Zodiacs ferrying folks ashore
Our morning schedule was a visit to Puerto Ayora, the town and port that is the main hub of local and tourist activity on Santa Cruz Island. It's also home to the Darwin Research Station and the National Park Services, run by the Equadorian government. In 1959 all areas of the Galapagos Islands not already colonized were declared a National Park by Equador. At the same time the Darwin Foundation was established with the objective of insuring that the unique Galapagos ecosystems be preserved without human or other outside change. Over the years plants and animals, particularly the Giant Tortoise, were collected and relocated. Early conservation efforts resulted in inter-breeding, but an active effort to isolate those Tortise and insure (with the new technology of DNA) that those that do get returned to each island have not been changed by Tortoise from other islands. Darwin Station is also home to "Lonesome George", the last known surviving member of the Pinta Island race. A world wide search is on for a surviving female (in the early 1900's wealthy folks often bought a Giant Tortoise for their "gardens", later donating them to Zoos when they were no longer wanted). Hope remains that a mate will show up -- but there's a small problem; Lonesome George is sterile! A cloning attempt is in early planning stages but that very expensive effort faces the possibility that Lonesome George may have always been sterile.
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Santa Cruz Highlands
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Afternoon activity was a bus trip to the Santa Cruz highlands to visit a "Tortoise Ranch". The Giant Tortoise here are actually "in the wild" and local farmers are given financial incentives to not obstruct the ability of these tortoise to return to their historic breeding areas. We visited a large old lava tube on our way back.
