Galapagos Giant Tortoises

"I want to emphasize that this book is not just for Galpagos giant tortoise enthusiasts. It also highlights the many lessons that have been learned from restoration of Galpagos ecosystems. I teach an undergraduate course on conservation biology and always include a discussion of "ecological substitutes as a means or restoring lost ecological functions. The comprehensive list of tortoise rewilding efforts around the globe (Chapter 2) will definitely be incorporated into my discussion of this topic the next time I give the course. My course similarly includes a unit on eradication of invasive species, and the eradications successfully completed in the Galpagos (Chapter 19) are certainly a guide for future eradication attempts around the globe. I was particularly interested in the rat eradication carried out on Pinzn Island (Chapter 22) and the immediate benefits detected for not only Galpagos giant tortoises, but also land snails, lava lizards, Galpagos snakes, cactus finches, and Galpagos rails.

This leads to my final point about the book's inspiring accounts of individual tortoises. Although we are all aware of the incredible longevity of giant tortoises, the stories in this volume brought it home to me in a way I had not experienced before. I was particularly moved by the story of Diego (Chapter 21), the Espaola giant tortoise who was collected from his home island in 1934, spent 43 years at the San Diego Zoo, was then transferred to the Tortoise Breeding Center to participate in the captive breeding program for another 43 years, before being returned to his home island in 2020. It is incredible to think of any living organism having witnessed so much change, but the authors of this volume calculate that 2% of Galpagos giant tortoises alive today would have been present when Darwin visited the islands in 1834. It is only due to their extreme longevity that the tortoises were able to persist through centuries of human exploitation and invasive species (e.g., there was no natural tortoise recruitment on Pinzn for over a century). I commend the authors for composing engaging chapters across the board and the editors for forming them into a cohesive volume." --The Quarterly Review of Biology

Philip Nyhus is the Director of the Environmental Studies Program at Colby College in Maine, Maine, US. His interdisciplinary research bridges the natural and social sciences to address human interactions with the environment, including endangered species conservation and recovery, human-wildlife conflict, large landscape conservation, and spatial modelling. He is co-editor of Tigers of the World: The Science, Politics and Conservation of Panthera tigris (2010). Dr James Gibbs is an Associate Chair and Distinguished Professor of Vertebrate Conservation Biology in the Department of Environmental and Forest Biology at SUNY-ESF in Syracuse, New York, US. Since 2014, he has also served as Director of the Roosevelt Wildlife Station at SUNY-ESF and Adjunct Scientist for the Galapagos Conservancy. He received his Ph.D. in Forestry and Environmental Studies from Yale University, Connecticut, US. He has co-authored five books and numerous journal publications on wildlife and conservation biology. Dr Gibbs is also a member of the Society for Conservation Biology, The Wildlife Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr Linda Cayot has worked for the Galapagos Conservation for more than 30 years. She first went to the Galapagos in 1981 to study giant tortoises for her PhD from Syracuse University and has stayed involved with the Islands ever since. Dr. Cayot served as herpetologist of the Charles Darwin Research Station (CDRS) from 1988 to 1998, during which time she supervised both the giant tortoise and land iguana breeding and rearing programs, worked extensively with Lonesome George, the last remaining member of the tortoise subspecies Chelonoidis abingdoni from Pinta Island, and supervised Ecuadorian students studying the endemic reptiles of the Galapagos, among many other things. In her final year with the CDRS, Linda coordinated the start of the successful Project Isabela, aimed at ridding Isabela and other islands of feral goats. She has worked as Galapagos Conservancy's Science Advisor since 2008. Dr. Cayot continues to collaborate with the Galapagos National Park Service in strategizing and planning future conservation efforts for tortoises throughout the islands. Dr. Washington Tapia Aguilera is the director of the Giant Tortoise Restoration Initiative under the Galapagos Conservancy. He received his master's degree in Conservation of Tropical Biodiversity from San Pablo University CEU, Madrid, Spain and later his Ph.D. in Biodiversity and Environmental Studies from the University of Malaga, Malaga, Spain. He has led conferences and headed numerous research publications focusing on the conservation and environmental factors on Galapagos animals including giant tortoises and land iguanas.

Section I: Overview 1. The Galapagos: Island Home of Giant Tortoises 2. Galapagos tortoises: Protagonists in the spectacle of life on Earth

Section II: History of Human - Tortoise Interactions 3. Human perceptions of Galapagos tortoises through history 4. The era of exploitation: 1700-1959 5. Darwin and the Galapagos giant tortoises 6. The Collectors: Beginnings of scientific inquiry and the lasting impacts of living and museum collections

Section III: Natural History 7. Evolution and phylogenetics 8. Morphology 9. Reproduction 10. Thermoregulation 11. Behavior and Diet 12. Population biology 13. Movement ecology 14. Habitats 15. Role in Ecosystems 16. Galapagos Tortoises in a Changing Climate

Section IV: Conservation: Slow Rescue from Near Destruction 17. History of Galapagos tortoise conservation 18. Tortoise health 19. Invasive Species: Impacts, Control, and Eradication 20. Tortoise Populations after 60 Years of Conservation

Section V: Restoration Case Studies 21. Espaola Island: From Near Extinction to Recovery 22. Pinzn Island: A Century of Zero Tortoise Hatchlings to a Growing Population 23. Floreana and Pinta Islands: Restoring Tortoise Populations through Lost Lineage Recovery 24. Santa Fe Island: Return of tortoises via a replacement species

Section VI: Into the Future 25. Beyond rescue to full recovery