Baby Tortoises Found On Galapagos Island For The First Time In Over 100 Years was published by Stephen Messanger, on January 25, 2015. This article is about baby tortoises being found on the Galapagos Island. Tortoises have been very close to being extinct. In fact there was only 100 tortoises remaining in the 1960's. This happened because of human activity. In the mid 18th century, when sailors first landed on Pinzon Island, they carried rats on their ships. These rats ate and killed all the hatchlings that in the following decades not a single tortoise offspring survived. Any unhatched eggs that were found were carefully taken and then incubated for 5 years before being released back on Pinzon Island. in 2012, biologist dropped a certain type of poison, that only attracts rats, onto the island. Pinzon Island was now rat free. After killing all the rats on Pinzon island, 10 new baby tortoises were found on the island that were bred in the wild.
This article caught my eye because I have read about the tortoises on the Galapagos Island being very close to extinct. So when reading the title I was very shocked that baby tortoises were now roaming the islands. Even though there was only 10 baby tortoises found, that's just only the beginning. From only having 100 tortoises in he 1960's, there might now be 500 on the island. 500 is still a little but its a sure sign that the tortoises are coming back, and that makes me really happy.
The environmental aspect of the article is the tortoises. The tortoises are a living animal that was on the brink of extinction. The effort that scientist put into the tortoises gave there species more time to breed and not go extinct. Now the tortoises can live on Pinzon Island with out any problems and can now expand there species.
Yay! Tortoises!! 5/5
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