A story of a tortoise called George, with love from the Galapagos

---

With literally just days until I am back in the UK I wanted to post some pictures from my wonderful time in the Galapagos, if only to give you a flavour of where I have been for the last 2 weeks!

In any event, I will tell you the TRUE story of Lonesome George, in case you do not know it....

Once upon a time in the Galapagos, on the Island (of which there are many here and I only peeked at 7) called Pinta lived over 100,000 giant tortoises. They pretty much had the place to themselves until over the course of the 1800s and early 1900s sailors, whalers, and inhabitants of the islands liked the tasty meat and pretty much ate the tortoises to near extinction, the final nail in the coffin was when they introduced goats (not endemic to Galapagos) to the islands which destroyed the habitat of Pinta. In 1958 however, some people found George and brought him to Santa Cruz for safe keeping whilst they tried to find his family! They could find no females on Pinta. Lonesome George is the last of his kind (each island has a specific breed of tortoise compared to its neighbours). George is therefore literally a dying breed. For company he has 2 lady tortoises (who are not from Pinta but the most similar to George´s species) and every day the National Park hopes George will breed....so far, not so good, George does not seem interested and one theory (of which there are many) is that because he has spent most of his days alone he has simply not aquired the necessary social skills on exactly what he has to do! Until then, scientists have some of his sperm (in case one day science allows us to generate baby Lonesome Georges) but until then he will be simply one of his own. The idea of artifical insemination has also been mooted but presently (so I have been informed} there is not enough knowledge on how it works with reptiles and eggs etc. Too much unknown for the cost to be considered at this stage.

So, if you only go to the Galapagos for one reason (although there are a million brilliant reasons to go, you should go and visit Lonesome George - I think he quite likes the company 😊

Looking forward to seeing you all when i get back and showing you the 600 odd photos I have taken!!

Brim, happy travels - thanks for the adventure x

---

Photos

It is a hard life!
My favourite picture of the Galapagos, simply because it tells you everythying :)

A wonderful view...
...and I don´t just mean the hot chicas either ,)

Sunset on the Galapagos
slightly lopsided as I was on the top of a sailing boat that was rolling across the water!

Blue footed boobie
Yes, that is its name!

Male Frigate bird
Trying to catch the attention of the ladies!

Baby sea lion having an afternoon siesta
waiting for its mum to return from the sea!

Sally Lightfoot
but I thnk it should be Lightfeet :)

Comments

[Georgina Turtle]

Poor George...
It seems that any animals named George are destined for a life of celibacy, without the opportunity to find their soul mate :-( Looking forward to seeing you and looking through the photos...no really, we are xxxx