Скачать или смотреть Galapagos' new star tortoise takes centre stage after death of 'Lonesome George'

(3 Jul 2012) STORYLINE
A new tortoise has taken centre stage on the Galapagos Islands after the recent death of Lonesome George.
Diego is described by keepers at the Galapagos National Park as prolific, bossy, centenarian tortoise, who is rather active for his age.
Lonesome George's inability to reproduce made him a global symbol of efforts to halt the disappearance of species.
And while his kind died with him, that doesn't mean the famed giant tortoise leaves no heir apparent.
Unlike Lonesome George, who died on June 24, Diego symbolises not a dying breed but one resurrected.
Having sired hundreds of offspring, Diego has been central to bringing the Espanola Island type of tortoise back from near extinction, rangers at Galapagos National Park say.
Diego was plucked from Espanola by explorers sometime between 1900 and 1930 and was later given a home in the San Diego Zoo in California, said the head of the park's conservation programme, Washington Tapia.
When the US zoo returned him to the Galapagos in 1975, the only other known living members of his species were two males and 12 females.
Chelonoidis hoodensis - some consider it species, some a subspecies - had been all but destroyed, mostly by domestic animals introduced by humans that ate their eggs.
So Diego and the other tortoises were placed in a corral at the park's breeding centre on Santa Cruz, the main island in the isolated archipelago.
Tapia said it is impossible to know Diego's age, but he is well over 100.
He estimates Diego is the father of 40 to 45 percent of the 1,781 tortoises born in the breeding programme and placed on Espanola island.
Diego is nearly three feet (90 centimetres) long, weighs 176 pounds (80 kilograms), and has a black saddleback shell.
A visit to Lonesome George became a must for celebrities and common folk alike among the 180-thousand people who annually visit the Galapagos.
Before humans arrived in the Galapagos, the six islands were home to tens of thousands of giant tortoises.
Numbers were down to about 3-thousand in 1974, but the recovery programme run by the national park and the Charles Darwin Foundation has succeeded in increasing the overall population to 20-thousand.


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