Santa Cruz Island is the one where most of the people in the Galapagos live - 20,000 people live here. When we got off the panga, we saw this blue heron in the distance. These are the birds that eat the Sally Lightfoot Crabs that I´ve shown previously.
In this town, we spent a while exploring the Charles Darwin Research Station. This is a wonderful organization that primarily works to keep the tortoises on the Galapago Islands alive and well. Each island has a slightly different species of tortoise. The researches go onto the islands when the tortoises have laid their eggs and they take them to raise them until they are well enough to live on their own. One of the biggest problems in the Galapagos is that many additional species have been introduced by people living on the islands, such as cattle, rats, goats, etc. These other animals have aided tremendously in trying to wipe out some of the original species on the islands. This research station is also trying to rid the islands of these foriegn animals so that the tortoises and other species will be able to live for a long time on these islands. In the research station, you can see many very young tortoises that they are raising, later to release back into their habitats. They also have adults that they study and use for mating.
They have even found tortoises that are from the Galapagos all over the world. Here you can see Diego, a tortoise found at the San Diego zoo who is now back in his homeland. It is easier to find them at zoos, but much more difficult at private organizations. The Darwin research station only makes money from private donations and is an excellent organization to give to.
We were able to get VERY close to these tortoises, as you can see here. I thought he might nip at my nose, but he was very calm.
They feed the tortoises leafs and such and we were able to get a great video of one of the big guys eating.
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