* Lonesome George, 100 years old, was a symbol of Galapagos
Islands
* 17 tortoises with genetic traces of George species found
* Park could crossbred them to obtain purebred
By Eduardo Garcia
QUITO, Nov 22 (Reuters) – A species of giant tortoises from
the Galapagos Islands could be brought back from extinction
despite the death earlier this year of the famed “Lonesome
George,” a tourist magnet and conservation icon who was the last
of his kind.
Genetic material from George’s species, which was largely
killed off in the 1800s by pirates and whalers who hunted their
meat, has survived in tortoises on the islands – and scientists
think they may be able to bring the species back to life.
A study by the Galapagos National Park and Yale University
found at least 17 tortoises on the Isabela island that are
descendents of George’s species, the Chelonoidis abingdonii.
“The study showed that among the population of tortoises
living in the Wolf volcano there were 17 individuals that have
genetic traces of the tortoises that lived in the Pinta island,
where Lonesome George hails from,” park director Edwin Naula
told Reuters.
George was believed to be around 100 years old and the last
specimen of a species of giant tortoise from La Pinta, one of
the smallest islands in the Galapagos archipelago.
Researchers believe some Pinta tortoises may have been
thrown overboard by sailors and they found their way to Isabela,
wh ere they mated with local tortoises.
Naula said these tortoises are similar in shape to George
and have a saddle-back carapace like him. He said the park could
crossbreed the tortoises and after two or three generations they
may be able to obtain Pinta purebreds.
“We could start a long and complex process that would take
between 100 to 150 years,” he said.
George was found in 1972 and had become the poster boy for
the islands, which attracted some 180,000 visitors last year. He
held a Guinness World Record as the most endangered animal.
He lived in an outdoor pen on the island of Santa Cruz and
hundreds of tourists from all over the world used to visit him
every month, eager to take a snapshot of the one-of-a-kind giant
tortoise.
George’s death was such a blow to the park that authorities
there said they were considering embalming his body so that it
could be displayed in the park.
“We’re about to start that … We plan to do it with the
Museum of Natural History in New York. At present the corpse is
frozen in nitrogen,” Naula said.
Scientists had been trying to get George to mate since the
1990s, when they introduced two female tortoises of a different
subspecies into his pen. They laid eggs twice, but they were
infertile.
The giant Galapagos tortoises, which can live up to 200
years, were among the species that helped Charles Darwin
formulate his theory of evolution in the 19th century.
Some 50,000 giant tortoises still live on the Galapagos. The
park is breading them in captivity and reintroduces some 300
tortoises every year into the wild.
(Editing by Sandra Maler)
