Giant tortoises have been reintroduced to the Galapagos island of Espanola, saving the species from extinction in a rare conservation success story.
In the 1960s the 14 remaining giant tortoises on the island of Espanola were taken into captivity along with a male giant tortoise from the San Diego Zoo. Their population was rebuilt through a breeding program and now numbers about 1,000. The tortoises can now sustain themselves without further help from humans, Reuters reported, citing a study published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE.
The Espanola giant Galapagos tortoises (scientific name Chelonoidis hoodensis) measure about 1 metre long and have a saddle-backed shell. They eat grass and leaves during the wet season and cactus during the dry season. Individuals can live as long as 150 to 200 years. Their population is believed to have once numbered from 5,000 to 10,000 but was devastated with the arrival of buccaneers and whalers in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Giant tortoises used to live around the world but today they are confined to the Galapagos and a group of islands east of Tanzania in the Indian Ocean, Dennis Hansen, a giant tortoise expert at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, told Newsweek.
Giant tortoises act as “ecosystem engineers,” making life possible for other animals in their habitats, James Gibbs State, a professor at the State University of New York who co-authored the study, told Reuters. For this reason, researchers are trying to reintroduce them in other islands where they once lived.
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