Red tyrant and lava gull return to Galapagos Island that inspired Darwin 14:05 Abroad Ecuador will remove rats and cats from the island of Floreana so that extinct animal species can live there safely again.

Ecuador is allocating more than 3 million euros to reintroduce twelve animal species that are extinct on one of the most famous Galapagos Islands. These include giant tortoises and birds such as the red tyrant, the Galapagos hawk and the lava gull. Vegetarian tree finches that inspired Darwin’s theory of evolution must also be returned to the island of Floreana.

The animals became extinct on Floreana due to the great human influence on that island, where the first permanent resident of the archipelago lived between 1805 and 1809, the abandoned Irish sailor Patrick Watkins. Since the 17th century, pirates and whalers have used the remote archipelago, 1,000 kilometers from the South American mainland, as a base.

In 1835, a young Charles Darwin visited the island on a round-the-world voyage on the Beagle. He was told by a resident that he could recognize from the shells on which of the islands a turtle had been caught. Darwin would later explain this difference with his theory of evolution.

Evolution theory

Darwin himself had also noticed that similar animal species on the different islands looked slightly different. He explained that this was because the animal species were perfectly adapted to the different conditions on their island through natural selection.

While the unique development of nature on the Galapagos Islands became world famous, it also suffered greatly from human influences. Rats and cats that came on ships stole rare animals, and goats that were released gnawed the island bare.

Good luck

The goats were removed from the island in 2007 and the government of Ecuador is now also combating rats and cats. From January next year, the island must be prepared again for the reintroduction of animals that no longer live here.

An earlier attempt at nature conservation on the archipelago already bore fruit earlier this year. In a breeding program for the rare red tyrant on the neighboring island of Santa Cruz, twelve chicks hatched from fifteen breeding pairs this year. That was a record number since the program started in 2018.

The giant tortoises also returned to another island: