Flipping through my Twitter feed tonight, I came across a sad headline. Lonely George, believed the last of his subspecies was found dead in his enclosure Sunday morning. He was something of a poster "child" for the Galapagos Islands and the threat of human involvement on those islands. His passing hit me more then I thought it would. I remember hearing about him when I was in grade school and seeing photos of him. The unfortunate thing, his DNA was incompatible with the females put into his enclosure from other islands oooor he was sterile. I don't know about that, but all the clutches laid never hatched. So, we have sadly witnessed the passing of a unique species from the earth. George wasn't the last giant tortoise. The tortoises from the other islands have been put under protection since 1974. The good news is that their numbers are up from 3000 in 1974 to around 20,000. In honor of George, the lonely tortoise, I did a little drawing from a photo taken of him in 2008.
Link to article: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/06/24/famed-galapagos-tortoise-dies/?test=latestnews
