Any discussion of Galapagos should to start with the tortoise.Celebrity Xpedition, I think on purpose, saves these excursions until the last day. One option is to visit a tortoise preservation farm and the other is the Darwin center. These pictures are from the farm.
These creatures are scattered around the landscape like cows on a dairy farm. To give you an idea of their size, here are two daring explorers risking their lives in the open field with these wild unrestricted beasts.
They are vegetarians eating the local plants. Like bovines (cows for city folk), there are many tortoise plops scattered around the open field. One must walk looking down to avoid the unfortunate interaction -- especially with open sandals.
Historically, the Galapagos was a stopping point for sailing ships for the last several centuries. Although it was not a watering stop, the sailors would harvest tortoises to provision their ships with meat. In addition, the ship would release goats. Ferrel goats breed faster than the natural tortoises and ate all the good stuff. The goats were winning and the tortoises became endangered.
The park now has a program to eradicate the goats including shooting them from helicopters. Sorry, goat lovers.
Don't expect to see massive herds of tortoises charging over the horizon -- it takes 25 years before a new borne tortoise is ready to mate -- but they live for over 100 years. The Darwin center is dedicated to preserving newborns and repopulating the islands. More on this in another post.
3 comments:
Very daring of you guys to get so close to such untamed animals. If they decided to attack, you would barely have time to finish your lunch, pack your belongings, apply a thick layer of sun screen, and pick up a souvenir for the kids before those beasts would be on you!
Looking forward to more posts!
Jay P.
Do you think we could trade in Alli's little turtle for a Galapagos turtle?
-Liz
Does Ballerina have a passport?
Post a Comment