TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Giant Galapagos tortoise that were once near to extinction on a tiny Galapagos island have amazingly growing again in number, a new study reveals. In 1960s, the population of the tortoise had shrunk into only 15 after their habitation was destroyed by wild goats.
Later on, about 40 years ago, the Galapagos tortoises which was cultivated in the breeding area were released into the wild and now there are around 1,000 tortoise that live in the wild.
"It's one of the greatest conservation success stories," said James Gibbs, a conservation biologist at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York, as quoted by Livescience.
"The first order of business was to eradicate the goats.”
Conservationists brought in trained gunmen on helicopters to hunt down and kill all of the goats. Meanwhile, the Galápagos National Park Service reintroduced captive-bred tortoises to the island, and marked and recaptured them over the years.
In the study, Gibbs and his colleagues analyzed 40 years of data collected by the national park service, the Charles Darwin Foundation and other visiting scientists. They found that the tortoise population had stabilized.
"What we basically found over time is, about half of the tortoises that were released have survived," Gibbs said. "That’s actually pretty amazing.”
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