Page 7 - Tracking Tortoises: The Mission to Save a Galápagos Giant

saw him a couple of years ago, as if Angel is
a young nephew he hasn’t visited in a while.
These researchers feel great affection for their
subjects. They’re rooting for the hatchlings to
survive—and to make it to the age of maturity in
their twenties. That’s when they’ll likely begin
to migrate, like many of the adult tortoises. But
their future isn’t guaranteed.
These tortoises live in one of the most
unique places on Earth. Located more than
600 miles (966 km) off the coast of Ecuador,
the Galápagos Islands have been a remote,
unspoiled sanctuary for plants and animals that
don’t live anywhere else in the world. They’re
home to birds with feet as blue as the sky and
prehistoric-looking iguanas that swim in the sea.
But these islands, isolated from the rest of the
world for so long, are changing. More people
live there now, and many more come to visit
each year. There are more buildings and more
farms, and that means less open, wild land for
tortoises to roam. Invasive species have poured
into the islands too, and the ocean is warmer
than it used to be.
What will these changes mean for Angel
and the other endangered tortoises? Will they
survive to maturity, when tortoises begin to
migrate? And if they do, will that migration
still be possible? That’s what this team of
rock-hopping researchers is hoping to find out.

Blue-footed boobies nest on land at night but spend much
of their day flying over the ocean, hunting for fish.

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