What if the entire future of your species depended on you and your ability to get lucky?
That’s exactly what happened to a Galapagos giant tortoise named Diego. Diego is over 100 years old, but he didn’t hesitate when it came to making babies. He proudly took on the duty of repopulating the planet with baby tortoises in 1977.
Diego has done well.
At present, he has fathered an estimated 1,700 offspring, nearly rebuilding the population single-handedly on the species’ native island of Espanola, the southernmost island in the Galapagos Archipelago. Before Diego started to repopulate the island, the species was near extinction.
Washington Tapia, a Galapagos National Park tortoise preservation specialist, said:
“He’s a very sexually active male reproducer. He’s contributed enormously to repopulating the island. We don’t know exactly how or when he arrived in the United States. He must have been taken from Espanola sometime between 1900 and 1959 by a scientific expedition. We did a genetic study and we discovered that he was the father of nearly 40 percent of the offspring released into the wild on Espanola.”
Thanks to Diego, the species is now doing well.
It will still need to be protected, and it will take a lot of work to get the tortoise population numbers up to a safe level. Diego is proving that it is possible and has already made a big difference.
Tapia added:
“I wouldn’t say (the species) is in perfect health, because historical records show there probably used to be more than 5,000 tortoises on the island. But it’s a population that’s in pretty good shape—and growing, which is the most important.”
The Galapagos tortoise isn’t the only species that is in danger.
More and more species are going extinct or are in danger of becoming extinct every day. According to the National Academy of Sciences:
“The rate of extinction is occurring at an alarming rate. Up to 200 species of plants, insects, birds, and mammals are declared gone from this planet every 24 hours. Global populations of fish, birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles have declined by 58 percent between 1970 and 2012.”
Another expert, Professor of Animal Welfare & Ethics at University of Winchester Andrew Knight, also said:
“A mass extinction event is one in which more than 50 percent of all species have gone extinct. The greatest tragedy of our time is that we’re wiping out all the other species we share the planet with.”
There have been other mass extinctions in the past, but they weren’t caused by one species.
Right now, humans are single-handedly destroying the planet and killing many of the creatures that live here.
Sailesh Rao, executive director of Climate Healers, explained:
“No other major extinction event in the past was caused by one species. We’re the only species currently destroying the planet. We’re losing another 3 percent [of species] per year. At that rate, by 2026, it will be 100 percent. Once they die off, we’re next on the line.”
So, what can we do to help?
We need to work harder to protect our planet. Pollution and deforestation are two huge problems. Humans are taking the homes of animals like the Galapagos tortoise. If Diego can help save his species by himself, can’t we all help out a little? We don’t want to see another species disappear from the planet.
It’s not too late to try to reverse all the damage we have done to the planet and start taking some positive steps toward rebuilding it. It’s not only the animals we have to worry about; we need to make sure humans can live on this planet, too.
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