Santa Cruz Island
Today we visited Santa Cruz, the second largest island of the Galápagos. Here we paid a visit to Charles Darwin Research Station and the Galápagos National Park Service. These institutions are the leaders in conservation in the Galápagos Islands.
In the morning we visited the giant tortoises at the research station. These giant reptiles are part of a breeding program. This has been happening since the early 1970s because the tortoise populations were seriously depleted and threatened with extinction. The goal of the program is to restore these small populations. So far the breeding programs have succeeded, and entire populations of tortoise and land iguanas have been restored.
The main settlement on Santa Cruz is Puerto Ayora. This town is home for most of the human population of the Galápagos Islands. It is a little vibrant place right on the sea. It is also the economic capital of the archipelago, and harbors most of the tourist businesses in the region.
The rest of the day was spent in the highlands; this cool green forest is home to Darwin’s finches and giant tortoises in the wild. Tortoises are forest dwellers on these islands and they can be found in large numbers in the national park as well as farming zones. In the highlands, grass and water are plentiful; these resources are the reason why tortoises are plentiful here.
During the time we were exploring the island we were delighted by the forest made up of big trees with low grass beneath and tortoises grazing and wallowing in the rain ponds.
It was like a dream walking among these slow-moving creatures.
