by Rachel Gates, UPenn student DAD volunteer
Regal, majestic, lonely. These are a few of the words to describe George, the lonesome tortoise. The last of his species, conservation groups have been fervently working to create more of his kind, attempting to cross him with another subspecies from the Island of Wolf, here in the northern tip of the Galapagos Archipelago. The news hit us yesterday morning, after spending a morning relaxing on the beach, watching the sea lions frolic and the crazy ways that the marine iguanas swim, and seeing a few of the other DAD workers coming out of a very successful meeting at the University. The news came, Lonesome George had passed away. We were floored.
The bachelor was young, scarcely older than perhaps 80 years old, half of the expected lifetime of the Galapagos Tortoise. I was lucky enough to see him at the beginning of my trip, but the other interns who have just arrived were not so lucky; they traveled all the way to the Galapagos and were not even able to see its main attraction. Unfortunately, it is incredibly difficult to determine when a tortoise is ailing, especially as they are so sedentary as it is. He was the last of his kind, and now his subspecies is officially extinct on the islands, a foreboding omen of what can become of the Galapagos if people do not change the way that they are living. Perhaps his nickname was more accurate than we could ever know, and his early demise was actually due to loneliness.
