Broad-shouldered, swarthy and weighing approximately 185 pounds, George languishes under a wooden pavilion. He ignores hundreds of people paraded past him each day. His small head rests motionlessly upon the crushed lava floor of his shelter.
Presumed to be somewhere between 80 and 100 years old, George is the last of a race of giant tortoises. Along with his imposing carapace, he carries the weight of a lineage thousands of years old. A resident of the Charles Darwin Research Station in the Galapagos Islands, the genesis of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, George runs the risk of being the last Geochelone elephantopus abingdoni (giant tortoise from the Island of Pinta).
In this enchanting archipelago, where Darwin realized species distinguish themselves through their ability to survive and propagate, love is in the air everywhere. On Academy Bay, on the island of Santa Cruz, just minutes from George, blue-footed boobies whoop and scream as they dive recklessly for fish swimming near the surface of the water. Landing on bay side cliffs, they stomp their exotic mating dance, seesawing their feet, stretching their necks and whistling their love song. Frigate birds, herons and pelicans play tag with one another in an aerial ballet, accompanied by the sound of waves lapping lazily against the black rocks. Across the island, on Tortuga Bay, sea turtles climb the elegant white sand beach to rest after hours mating with numerous partners. And on the aa (pronounced ah-ah) and pahoehoe (pa-hoy-hoy) lava, beside the rustic Hotel Galapagos, marine iguanas bob their leathery wrinkled necks in a nonchalant invitation to romance.
Meanwhile, inert and confused, George sits under a canopy built by naturalists to provide privacy, where he could romance his consorts. The folks at the research station are beside themselves. They’ve furnished George with an expansive bachelor’s pad on a bed of natural lava, replete with prickly pear and candelabra cactus. They’ve even brought in two young (50-plus-year-old) femme fatales who are morphologically similar, hoping to inspire some romance. Languishing on rocks, they slide their provocative long necks from impressive saddle-back shells and bat their imploring eyes. But from George, nothing! He savors his privacy, not only from the visitors paraded past him but from the consorts.
The source of George’s problem is not clear to anyone. What is clear is that he has become another casualty of man’s impact on a fragile ecosystem. In 1535 when Geochelone elephantopus were discovered, there were at least 14 subspecies with carapace measuring a maximum of nearly four feet and weighing as much as 500 pounds. Since their discovery it has been estimated that more than 10 million have been killed. Whaler’s logs indicate about 200,000 were slaughtered over a 30-year period during the 19th Century. When food became scarce, they brought large numbers of the tortoises on board ships. Left unattended, they were killed as needed for meat and later used for oil from their fat and eggs. Consequently several subspecies have become extinct. Through the establishment of the Darwin Research Station in 1964 and the declaration of the Galapagos as a national park of Ecuador, ambitious conservation and breeding programs have been adopted to encourage the natural breeding habits of the remaining 10,000 tortoises.
When George was found in 1971 by a scientist from the Darwin Research Station studying land snails on the island of Pinta, it had been years since any other giant tortoises had been seen roaming the island.
Some naturalists think he has just forgotten what he’s supposed to do. Unfortunately he isn’t as resourceful as a tortoise from the nearby island of Pinzon. The Pinzon tortoise, who could have found a female companion if he were willing to look hard enough, chose a rock that looked a lot like a tortoise instead. He settled down with his rock for a quiet uncomplicated life “romancing a stone.”
George’s fans would welcome an acceptable rock for him. At least they could extract some seminal fluid to inseminate a female artificially. Since female tortoises lay from two to nine eggs (average, about six), offspring could eventually be back-bred for characteristics peculiar to the Geochelone elephantopus abingdoni. But rocks don’t seem to interest George any more than female tortoises.
In 1993 the Darwin Station imported a woman from Switzerland to try to collect semen samples from George. After several months, shy George would allow her to come near him. Eventually, she even succeeded in encouraging him to expose himself. Unfortunately, nothing she saw was very encouraging.
“What about showing him some provocative movies,” I suggested to our naturalist, Steve. You could call it “Hard Shell,” another member of our tour group suggested. We weren’t as innovative or as humorous as we thought. “In fact,” Steve retorted, “the only time tortoises make any sound at all is when they’re mating. So we moved George to an area near some other, more amorous tortoises, hoping the sound of their lovemaking would spark a romantic memory.” It didn’t. George remained aloof and apart.
For a short time there was some hope. George began to mount the females. He continues to do so today. Unfortunately his attendants realize that, for George, mounting is the beginning and the end of his mission. There he sits motionless, enjoying the vista from his new elevation.
“What distinguishes George from the other Galapagos tortoises is the apronlike appendage at the back of his carapace,” Steve instructs us. We stand staring at the hind section of this doleful giant, tucked tightly into his shell.
No amount of prodding, coaxing or cajoling will unlock the secret of his reserve. Perhaps man, in all his wisdom, can no longer meddle with nature’s blueprint for the Geochelone elephantopus. On these islands, “survival of the fittest” reigns supreme.
For now, man can only admire the giant tortoise from Pinta and hope he is not nearing the end of a journey, traveled the distance of so many centuries.
