The Galapagos National Park (PNG), announced a strong recovery of vegetation, tortoise, and albatross populations on Española the southern most island of the archipelago. The report stated that a surge in population of the tortoise occurred from an almost extinct 15 to 2,000 reptiles in total.
The population surge is due to the efforts of raising the tortoises in captivity. As of now, they are reproducing naturally. “We are now finding nests, recently hatched tortoises, adults who had been born in the wild, which tells us that it’s a population in good condition and we’ll have to evaluate whether it’s still necessary to continue breeding them in captivity,” Washington Tapia, PNG’s technical coordinator and head of the project, said.
The PNG used electronic devices to monitor the island’s giant tortoise population which was part of a recovery and environmental protection project.