Blog - Tortoises

Galapagos: A Living Laboratory

October 19, 2012

Since their introduction to Galapagos by whalers in the 18th century, goats have ravaged island ecosystems by destroying native vegetation and threatening the survival and reproduction of endemic species. Following several successful eradication programs, funded in part by members of Galapagos Conservancy, many of the affected islands are now thriving. However, the steady growth of another invasive—residents and visitors—provide a new set of complex conservation challenges.

Sandy Hausman of WVTF public radio in Roanoke, VA recently discussed the conservation challenges associated with tourism as well as the destructive history of introduced species on the delicate ecosystems of Galapagos. GC's President, Johannah Barry, spoke with Sandy about the goat eradication efforts and the importance of protecting this unique archipelago.

Listen to the WVTF Living Laboratory program

Also interviewed on the program were a Washington & Lee University professor emeritus, Dr. Cleve Hickman, and W&L alumnus, Scott Henderson. Cleve taught at Washington and Lee from 1967 to 1994 and has been researching the Galapagos since 1985, focusing on the systematics and distribution of the marine invertebrate fauna. As part of a W&L class, Cleve travelled to Galapagos with nearly 150 students. Since his retirement, he has authored four seminal field guides on sea stars, molluscs, crustaceans, and corals for the Galapagos Marine Life Series. GC’s Cleve Hickman Endowment for Marine Research is named in his honor and funded largely by his former students. Scott Henderson, W&L Class of 1987, participated in one of Cleve’s trips to Galapagos and is now the regional marine conservation director of Eastern Tropical Pacific Seascape as part of Conservation International's South American Division. He has served as a consultant, researcher, and NGO staff in Latin America and parts of Africa. Both Cleve and Scott are long-time supporters of Galapagos Conservancy and have lent their expertise to GC staff and partners to ensure the continued protection of the Galapagos Islands.

We Witnessed Extinction

October 12, 2012

Lonesome George was the last of his kind when he died on June 24th earlier this year. I was in Galapagos and remember seeing a local café put a hand-lettered sign out that Sunday morning saying, “Today we have witnessed extinction.”  This was powerful language for a resident population that had not been uniformly strong about conservation. But that day, we all knew what losing George meant. A species was lost “on our watch,” and we needed to resolve that this would be the last.

For 50 years, conservation in Galapagos followed what I would call a “silo” mentality. It was species driven, population driven, and the science behind it — at least at the Research Station — was very compartmentalized. Over the years, as conservation management evolved, the concept of ecosystem restoration took a stronger hold. It would be a stretch to link this evolution in thinking to George, but it is true that as the likelihood of George’s natural reproduction ebbed, and conversations about cloning came and went, the virtue of looking at the health of whole systems, rather than an individual or a particular species, made sense.

It is fitting then that we contemplate the dramatic and very positive steps that science for conservation has taken in Galapagos over the last twenty years. Emerging from the larger Project Isabela, Project Pinta sought to bring back an island-wide ecosystem balance between plants and native herbivores. With the last Pinta tortoise removed from Pinta, the Galapagos National Park Service, after long debate and informed by good science, placed sterilized hybrid tortoises on Pinta in 2010 with the plan to add a reproductive population once it was confirmed that the resident population was thriving.  What science was to learn from concurrent genetic work, funded in part by Galapagos Conservancy, was that Wolf Volcano on the island of Isabela had some tortoises with Pinta ancestry. The potential yet exists to form a Pinta breeding program over the next decade. Wolf Volcano turned out also to be the home of even more Floreana hybrids, long thought to be extinct in the archipelago. 

Not only has genetic work changed conservation dynamics, but advances in other technologies have changed the way we do island-wide eradications. Along with strong science on the management of target and non-target species, restoration efforts to eradicate introduced rodents will move forward this November on Pinzón Island and Plaza Sur. Deploying rat bait by helicopter, using techniques forged during Project Isabela, Pinzón will be the largest island in Galapagos from which rats will be eliminated, and its native tortoise and bird populations will once again thrive in the absence of introduced predators.

The challenges in Galapagos are real. The threats posed by the introduction of plants, animals, and pathogens pose an almost insurmountable problem. But with the collective work of the international scientific community, the academic community, the government of Ecuador, the Charles Darwin Foundation, focused NGOs such as Galapagos Conservancy and local organizations willing to push for stringent conservation measures, we stand an excellent chance of protecting this extraordinary place. Lonesome George’s legacy will live on.

For Galapagos,

Johannah Barry

Galapagos in Mourning

June 26, 2012

Sunday morning in Mi Caleta, a small hotel in Pto. Ayora, Dr. Linda Cayot, Dr. James Gibbs, and I were finishing breakfast and settling down to discuss the logistics of an upcoming international workshop on participatory monitoring (citizen science), the first such workshop to be held in Galapagos. Linda grabbed my phone (note: Linda, along with my husband Dave, may indeed be the last two people on earth without a cell phone) to check in with her colleague at the National Park, her longtime friend and co-coordinator of the workshop, with some logistical questions. Her quick call to Wacho (Washington Tapia, Director of Environmental Programming for the Galapagos National Park) proved to be a moment we will never forget.

After ending her call, and having a quick word with James, Linda took me aside to tell me that Lonesome George had been found dead that morning in his corral.  Linda couldn’t finish her sentence before she started to cry and soon after, James and I had difficulty keeping our composure. Linda and James had known Lonesome George since 1981; I met him in 1991. George was like a cranky, eccentric uncle that you knew you would see at every family reunion. Except this year. Lonesome George was gone and it was impossible to believe. And with George – his species.

Lonesome George surveying his corral at the Tortoise Center on Santa Cruz Island.

Keenly aware of the global significance of this news, Park officials wisely wanted to get this information out to the public as quickly and accurately as possible.  We asked the Park officials if we might be allowed to help create a press release that gave a bit more of the background of Lonesome George and a vision toward the future for tortoise restoration in Galapagos. Linda had worked with George daily for over 10 years, and wanted to provide, if the Park would allow us, a fuller story about George and what he means for conservation.

The Park generously gave us time to pull our thoughts together, but we were mindful of their need as the key management agency in Galapagos to ensure that the news of George’s death was handled with the utmost care and precision. We began to write in sequence, each adding to the others’ thoughts until we managed to capture the essence of what George meant to Galapagos and to species preservation (and the precarious situation of many species not only in Galapagos but also throughout the world). 

After the news was released by the Park, we found ourselves thinking through the timing of George’s death. Last year, we began collaborating with the Park to organize a tortoise recovery workshop in which local and international scientists and managers would create a long-term recovery plan for Galapagos tortoises focused on both critical research and management.  We assumed, of course, that George would be with us in July of this year, as our unofficial host. That he isn’t, is actually more reason to move ahead. The plight of Lonesome George and his species has catalyzed so much research in species recovery (captive breeding and repatriation, genetic research leading to breeding programs, ecosystem restoration for tortoise recovery, etc.). Lonesome George’s message ultimately must be a message of hope and of resolve.  We cannot and will not lose another species in Galapagos.  Our efforts will be directed at species enhancement, recovery, and restoration.

We will miss Lonesome George, but he will be a strong presence with us in July. What we do, we do for him and for all the creatures that inhabit this extraordinary place.

For Galapagos,

Johannah Barry
President of Galapagos Conservancy

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