All About Tortoises: Santa Cruz Island

Today was a full day away from the water (felt kind of strange). The La Pinta docked near Santa Cruz Island and our pangas brought us to the dock. This port town is the largest town in the Galapagos—a bustling tourist (and residential/fishing) town. Not an iguana in sight. None of the other islands we’ve visited have had a single building on them.

Our first stop was to the Charles Darwin Research Station. The center and its foundation support many different conservation research projects—control of invasive or introduced plant and animal species, water resources, turtle breeding and so much more.

The focus of this morning visit was on the efforts to increase the population of land tortoises—because of the high mortality rate of tortoise eggs and hatchlings. While sea turtles may lay up to 80 eggs at a time, tortoises lay 4-5.

When a tortoise lays her eggs, she covers up the nest and poops on top of it. This may help with the imprinting of the hatchlings to follow mom’s trail back up to the highlands, because mom doesn’t stick around after laying her eggs—the babies are on their own. Researchers know they can safely collect eggs while the tortoise dung is still moist, but if it is dry, the embryos won’t survive transport, so they leave them in place. The eggs are collected from many different islands, and careful records are kept of the location and temperature of the sand where the eggs were originally found. The eggs are placed in labeled incubators and when hatched, they feed on their yolk sac for 30 days in a dark box that simulates the nest. They spend the first 2 years in protected pens, learning to find food and climb rocks. Eventually, they are returned to the place they were born. Then they have to make the long trek up to the highlands where they will live.

After a sumptuous lunch in the open-air dining room of the Finch Bay Hotel, we were taken by bus to the highlands where the tortoises live. The air is cooler (not that we noticed!) and there are natural ponds that form from the more frequent rainfall. The tortoises like to wallow in the ponds to get relief from the insects that bother them. There were varying sizes/ages of tortoises here and a number of very large, mature adults—some probably 500-700 lbs. Again, it was so special to be able to get so close to these creatures.Read more