QUITO: Job done, prolific Galapagos giant tortoise Diego is being released back into the wild after being credited by authorities with almost single-handedly saving his species from extinction.
###
The 100-year-old tortoise, who was recruited along with 14 other adults for a captive breeding programme, will be returned to his native island of Espanola in March, the Galapagos National Parks service (PNG) said Friday.
###
“About 1,800 tortoises have been returned to Espanola and now with natural reproduction we have approximately 2,000 tortoises,” Jorge Carrion, the park’s director, told AFP.
###
“This shows that they are able to grow, they are able to reproduce, they are able to develop,” said Carrion.
###
Diego’s contribution to the program on Santa Cruz Island was particularly noteworthy, with park rangers believing him responsible for being the patriarch of at least 40 per cent of the 2,000-tortoise population.
###
Around 50 years ago, there were only two males and 12 females of Diego’s species alive on Espanola, and they were too spread out to reproduce.
###
Diego was brought in from California’s San Diego Zoo to join the breeding program which was set up in the mid-1960s to save his species, Chelonoidis hoodensis.
###
The PNG believes he was taken from the Galapagos in the first half of the 20th century by a scientific expedition.
###
Now, Diego is returning to his original home “almost eight decades after being extracted,” the park service said, adding that he had lived at the San Diego Zoo for several decades.
###
“He’s contributed a large percentage to the lineage that we are returning to Espanola,” said Carrion.
###
“There’s a feeling of happiness to have the possibility of returning that tortoise to his natural state.”
###
Diego weighs about 80 kilograms, is nearly 90 centimetres (35 inches) long and 1.5 meters (five feet) tall, if he really stretches his legs and neck.
###
Before being returned to Espanola, tortoises must go through a quarantine period to avoid carrying seeds from plants that are not native to the island.
###
Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands, located in the Pacific Ocean, were made famous by Charles Darwin’s studies of their breathtaking biodiversity.
###
The story of Diego’s prowess contrasts sharply with the sad tale of Lonesome George, a different type of Galapagos giant tortoise, who had refused for years to breed in captivity.
###
Hopes for his species, Chelonoidis abingdoni, faded when Lonesome George passed away in 2012 at more than 100 years old.
###