... turtle time ...

on friday of our trip, we went to the charles darwin research station .... it's an interesting place ... when you read about it on trip advisor or a similar online site, the reviews are so varied .... it is astonishing, interesting, educational and chock full of multiples of all 11 subspecies of galapagos turtles .... but, the reason it gets bad reviews, or mixed reviews, is that it is fairly dilapidated .... outdated .... shabby .... it is not spick and span and sanitized like you'd expect a scientific research center to be ... no white coats, chrome, spit and polish .... just turtles and turtle muck in large old fashion pens .... i left a trip advisor review ... and i said it was awesome .... it exactly served its purpose and educated my children and me about the 15 endemic galapagos turtles .... and the 11 that are left ..... all in spite of being struck by a tsunami recently .... the turtles, luckily, were evacuated well ahead of time because of adequate warning ....

that's a picture of george ... lonesome george .... here's his story .... the island of pinta was well recorded as having loads of giant turtles ... pirates came and toted them away to have fresh meat on their long journeys ... in the early 20th century, it was searched for conservation reasons and not a single turtle was found ....years later, george, a very large turtle was found ... presumably then, the last time the island had been searched he had been tiny .... a baby .... and he grew up alone .... so now he's been alive more than 100 years .... they initially tried publicity to find him a mate ... giant turtles were returned from zoos all over the world .... no luck, the returned turtles weren't from pinta .... they got turtle pets back from natives ... none were from pinta .... none were the right species .... they tried introducing him to females from another species ... ones that seemed most similar to him genetically ... the females laid eggs ... but they were not fertilized ... no babies ... no more little georges .... he's the end of his species ... really a sad tale, right?

tomorrow i'll tell you a happier turtle story ... about diego ...