For 180 years, Floreana Island was missing something enormous.
The Floreana giant tortoise — a lumbering, ancient creature that once helped shape the island's entire ecosystem — had been hunted to extinction by whalers and sailors in the mid-1800s. For over a century, the species was considered gone. Not reduced. Gone.
Then, in 2008, ecologists made a startling discovery on the slopes of Wolf Volcano on nearby Isabela Island. Amongst the wild tortoise population there were hybrids — animals whose genetic profile carried significant Floreana ancestry. The lineage hadn't died out after all. It had been hiding inside the descendants of tortoises that whalers had tossed overboard when they were done with them.
From that discovery, a plan was born.
Ecuador's Ministry of Environment, the Galápagos National Park Directorate, the Charles Darwin Foundation, Island Conservation, and the Galápagos Conservancy launched a long-term selective breeding programme in 2017. Twenty-three of the most Floreana-like hybrids were selected as founders. Their offspring were carefully bred and raised at a dedicated centre. Hundreds of hatchlings were produced.
This February, 158 of them came home.
The tortoises released — between 12 and 14 years old, a size deemed ideal for post-release survival — are now roaming Floreana for the first time in living memory. Each is fitted with a GPS transmitter so scientists can monitor their movements, track habitat use, and keep them safe. The island itself has been cleared of invasive rats and goats in preparation for their arrival.
'Giant tortoises are a critical part of this ecosystem,' said Rakan Zahawi, executive director of the Charles Darwin Foundation. 'By dispersing seeds, shaping vegetation, creating microhabitats… and influencing how landscapes regenerate, they help rebuild ecological processes that many other species depend on.'
The reintroduction is part of the larger Floreana Ecological Restoration Project — one of the most ambitious island rewilding efforts ever undertaken. Twelve other endemic species are also being reintroduced to the island as part of a full ecological rebuild.
But the tortoises are the centrepiece. These aren't just animals returning home. They're ecosystem engineers — the living infrastructure around which everything else on Floreana once grew.
For the first time in 180 years, the island has its architects back. 🐢