the giant tortoise that ensures the survival of its species in Galapagos

Meanwhile, the population of his species and other tortoise species on Galapagos decreased considerably. This was due to various threats they faced over time. Firstly, there were pirates and whalers who took tortoise on their ships as food. As the Galapagos became more and more populated, goats also came to the islands, some of which ate away the turtles’ food. Rats threatened the young animals.

As a result, the population shrank enormously: from an estimated 400,000 individuals of 15 turtle species, there were only about 15% left by the end of the 1960s. Three subspecies are completely extinct. In 1979 Diego was selected for a breeding program and brought to the Charles-Darwin Research and Breeding Station on Santa Cruz. There he produced over 800 offspring by the beginning of 2020 and is thus the sire of about 40% of the 1800 turtles reintroduced to Española.

On 15 June 2020, the giant tortoise Diego, which is now over 100 years old, was brought back to the Galapagos island of Española together with 14 other conspecifics – 12 females and 2 other males. Before that, however, the animals had to be put into quarantine. Here they were “cleaned” internally and externally in order to prevent seeds of plant species not native to Española from being introduced into the island.