Giant Tortoises Return to Galápagos Island 180 Years After Being Driven to Extinction

Giant tortoises, the life-giving engineers of remote island ecosystems, are plodding over the Galápagos island of Floreana for the first time in more than 180 years. The Floreana giant tortoise (Chelonoidis niger niger), a subspecies once found across the Galápagos, was driven to extinction in the 1840s by whalers who removed thousands from the volcanic island to provide a living larder during their hunting voyages. Now, remarkably, 158 juvenile giant tortoises descended from the Floreana subspecies have been returned to the island in a vital step for the largest ecological restoration project ever undertaken on the Pacific Ocean archipelago. The comeback began with an astonishing discovery. In 2008, a relic population of giant tortoises on Wolf volcano in northern Isabela Island was found to be partly descended from the lost Floreana population. While most Wolf volcano tortoises had domed shells typical of Isabela, some had the distinctive saddleback-shaped carapace that evolved on Floreana. A captive 'back breeding' programme began in 2017, selecting 23 hybrid tortoises most closely related to the Floreana subspecies to recreate it as genetically close to the original as possible. By 2025, more than 600 hatchlings had been born, and several hundred grew large enough — males can reach nearly 1.5 metres (5ft) in length — to be returned to their ancestral island. Ironically, the Floreana tortoise endured on Wolf volcano because whalers themselves had deposited live tortoises on other islands for safekeeping, and sometimes tossed tortoise cargo overboard to lighten their load during whaling missions. Floreana was once home to spectacular endemic wildlife including the Floreana mockingbird and the Floreana racer snake. But the arrival of sailors, whalers, and settlers brought invasive mammals — rats and feral cats — that devastated native fauna and flora. When Charles Darwin reached Floreana in 1835, its giant tortoise population was already in its death throes. The reintroduction is part of the Floreana Ecological Restoration Project, a partnership between the Galápagos national park directorate and conservation charities working closely with the island's 160 residents. An invasive species eradication programme has been clearing the way for native species to reclaim their home. This is conservation at its most hopeful: a species thought lost forever, brought back through science, patience, and the determination to right a historical wrong.