Tortoise breeding
Trip Start
Jan 16, 2008
1
21
35
Trip End
Apr 19, 2008
Puerto Villamil,
Ecuador
Friday, March 14, 2008
Anyway, as can be expected the work is sometimes a lot of fun and sometimes really boring. I hate weeding, but the raking is quite ok. Feeding is of course the best.
Oddly enough they don't get fed with native plants. We feed them something that everyone just calls Tortuga Grass (Tortoise Grass), which has thick juicy stems and huge leaves. It does grow here on the islands, it just isn't native. The reason being that it is absolutely the most nutrious thing that they can eat, which gets them nice and big as quickly as possible. The tortoises can actuall survive for months on end without food or water, so feeding them 3 times a week also helps. They don't seem to mind being fed so often - they always come running when we rock up with a wheelbarrow full of the Good Stuff (yes, they do run).
The tortoises are way cool and they have their own personalities
342. Chocolate Chip Starfish
. Some of them were captured in the wild and others are ex-pets (they aren't allowed to be kept as pets any more obviously). Number 14 in pen 4 (nickname Candy) loves being scratched, so she's obviously an ex-pet. Of course, we're not actually allowed to touch them (affects their behaviour), but if no one is looking...The centre on Santa Cruz had tortoises from all the different islands, but the one here on Isabela only has tortoises from here. In most cases, each race of tortoises is specific to an island, but on Isabela 5 different races have evolved. There are 5 large volcanoes here on the island and they're separated by lava flows that the tortoises can't cross - hence the 5 variations. 3 of the races are doing quite well in the wild, but two of them are in danger. So at our centre, it is those two races that are being helped. There are 4 pens holding adults from the Sierra Negra tortoises, with each pen holding tortoises from a different area on the volcano. Their eggs are taken and incubated until they hatch. The babies are then looked after for 4 years in closed pens with mesh lids to protect them from predatory birds and what not. The fifth year they get to be in large open pens before being released. In June/July this year they'll be releasing a hundred of the little ones that we're looking after at the moment.
These tortoises aren't sexually mature until they are 20 or so, and basically 0% of tortoises born in the wild in this area survive, so I think the centre is really helping
343. Snorkelling at Concha
. The biggest problems for the tortoises are the introduced animals - rats, cats, dogs, goats, donkeys and cows. Some of those eat the eggs or tortoise young, others eat the vegetation, making it hard for the tortoises to survive. They had a big mission a few years back and basically wiped out 150,000 feral goats from the north of Isabela, but there are still some left here in the south where the Sierra Negra tortoises are from.On our little walk to the Wall of Tears the other day we saw 5 tortoises that had been released, they seemed to be living it large out there in the wild, so the program is hopefully doing some good.
As said, the work at the centre is sometimes pretty boring, but it helps knowing that we're helping them out.
Internet here on the island is pretty crusty, so I don't know when I'll be able to load up pictures. I'll try soon as possible though...
