{"id":491234,"date":"2026-02-22T03:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T03:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/491234\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T03:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T03:16:08","slug":"giant-tortoises-return-to-galapagos-island-after-nearly-200-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/491234\/","title":{"rendered":"Giant tortoises return to Gal\u00e1pagos island after nearly 200 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The restoration of Floreana has reached a hugely significant milestone, with 158 captive-bred giant tortoises released into the wild this week,&#8221; the Gal\u00e1pagos Conservation Trust (GCT) said in a statement on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This long-anticipated moment gives hope, not just for the future of Floreana, but for the future restoration of islands around the world,&#8221; it added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Dr Jen Jones, GCT chief executive, described the moment as &#8220;truly spine-tingling,&#8221;  adding that it had validated two decades of collaboration between scientists, charities and the local community.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The conservation project became possible after scientists discovered tortoises carrying Floreana ancestry on Wolf Volcano on Isabela island in 2008. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Researchers selected 23 hybrid tortoises with the closest genetic links to the extinct subspecies and began breeding them in captivity on Santa Cruz island.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">By 2025, more than 600 hatchlings had been produced, with several hundred now large enough to survive in the wild.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The GCT described the giant tortoises as &#8220;ecosystem engineers&#8221; and said they played an &#8220;outsized role in restoring degraded ecosystems&#8221; because of the way their activity shapes landscapes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#8220;The restoration of Floreana has reached a hugely significant milestone, with 158 captive-bred giant tortoises released into the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":["post-491234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}