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Diego the tortoise father to hundreds and saviour of his species finally retires
Date Added: June 17, 2020 06:40:32 PM
Author: Sutra Web Directory
Category: Recreation: Nature

Diego, the giant Galápagos tortoise whose tireless efforts are credited with almost single-handedly saving his once-threatened species, has been put out to pasture on his native island after decades of breeding in captivity, Ecuador’s environment minister said.

Diego was shipped out from the Galápagos national park’s breeding program on Santa Cruz to the remote and uninhabited Española.

“We are closing an important chapter” in the management of the park, minister Paulo Proano said on Twitter, adding that 25 tortoises including the prolific Diego “are going back home after decades of reproducing in captivity and saving their species from extinction”.

Española welcomed them “with open arms,” he said.

Before being taken back by boat to Española, the 100-year-old Diego and the other tortoises had to undergo a quarantine period to avoid them carrying seeds from plants that are not native to the island.

Diego weighs about 80kg (175 pounds), is nearly 90cm (35 inches) long and 1.5 meters (five feet) tall, if he stretches his legs and neck.

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% of the 2,000-tortoise population.

Around 50 years ago, there were only two males and 12 females of Diego’s species alive on Española, 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 national park believes he was taken from the Galápagos in the first half of the 20th century by a scientific expedition.

Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands, in the Pacific Ocean, were made famous by 19th century English naturalist Charles Darwin’s studies of their breathtaking biodiversity.