This will help Wacho to inform conservation strategies for the recovery of this population. On Santa Cruz, we need to increase our knowledge of the little-known Eastern Santa Cruz tortoises.
The team, led by Wacho Aguilera, aims to restore tortoise populations throughout the Archipelago to their historical distribution and number. This is a collaborative project run by the Galapagos Conservancy, the Galapagos National Park Directorate, and several international scientists. We are now providing funding to support the Giant Tortoise Restoration Initiative. Both Santa Cruz species are critically endangered. The range of the larger population, the Western Santa Cruz giant tortoise, overlaps with human-inhabited farmlands and in recent years, the expanding population has begun to arrive at the outskirts of the main town creating new conflicts. A newly identified species, the Eastern Santa Cruz giant tortoise has a small population (a few hundred) and is relatively unknown. Two species co-exist on Santa Cruz Island, which has the largest human population. In more recent years, Galapagos tortoises have been and continue to be threatened by predation and habitat destruction from invasive species, and increasing human-tortoise conflicts on the larger, human-inhabited islands. The dramatic decline of the Galapagos giant tortoises was due primarily to over-exploitation by whalers in the first half of the 19 th century they collected live tortoises by the hundreds for food on their long voyages. The rescue and eventual recovery of the tortoise populations has been slow and steady. Two centuries ago, the Galapagos Islands were home to more than 200,000 giant tortoises today four species are extinct and only 10% of the original number remain.
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