Galápagos Islands

The Galápagos are islands far out in the Pacific Ocean.

They belong to the country of Ecuador. The islands were made by volcanoes. Lots of the animals there live nowhere else in the world.

The Galápagos Islands lie in the Pacific Ocean, right around the Equator, about 1,000 kilometers west of mainland Ecuador, the country they belong to. There are 127 islands, islets and rocks; 19 of them are large, and people live on only 4.

Almost all of the land, 97 percent, is a national park, created in 1959. The sea around the islands is protected too, as the Galápagos Marine Reserve, which covers 133,000 square kilometers. In 1978 UNESCO listed the Galápagos as a World Heritage Site, and their number on the list is 1.

UNESCO describes the archipelago as 127 islands, islets and rocks about 1,000 km from continental Ecuador, of which 19 are large and 4 inhabited. In 1959, 97 percent of the land area was declared a national park; human settlement is restricted to zoned areas in the remaining 3 percent on four islands. The Galápagos Marine Reserve was created in 1986 (70,000 km²) and extended in 1998 to 133,000 km², counting all waters within 40 nautical miles of the outermost islands.

About 30,000 people live in the islands and some 170,000 tourists visit each year, according to UNESCO's statement. The property was inscribed in 1978, as World Heritage Site number 1, and Ecuador's 1998 Special Regime Law placed the marine reserve under the Galápagos National Park Service.

Giant tortoises live on the islands.

Some iguanas swim in the sea and eat seaweed. Penguins live there too, near the Equator! Many of these animals are found nowhere else on Earth.

The Galápagos are famous for animals that live nowhere else. About 80 percent of the land birds, 97 percent of the reptiles and land mammals and more than 30 percent of the plants are endemic, which means they are found only here. Scientists think the first giant tortoises arrived 2 to 3 million years ago, drifting about 600 miles from South America.

The marine iguana is the only lizard in the world that feeds in the sea, diving for seaweed. Blue-footed boobies nest on the islands, and the Galápagos penguin is the only penguin found north of the Equator. About 50,000 Galápagos sea lions lounge on the beaches and docks.

Galápagos Conservancy reports endemism of about 80 percent of land birds, 97 percent of reptiles and land mammals, more than 30 percent of plants and over 20 percent of marine species. The giant tortoises, now treated as 15 species of Chelonoidis, descend from ancestors thought to have arrived 2 to 3 million years ago from South America, colonizing Española and San Cristóbal first. Land and marine iguanas are estimated to have diverged about 10.5 million years ago.

The marine iguana is the only sea-going lizard, grazing on algae and expelling excess salt through a nasal gland; in the strong 1982–83 El Niño, up to 70 percent of some populations died. UNESCO adds flightless cormorants, huge cacti, endemic trees and the many subspecies of mockingbirds and finches, which inspired Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection after his visit in 1835. Galápagos Conservancy counts only 6 native land mammal species.

Long ago, people took many tortoises away on ships.

Now scientists help the tortoises. They raise baby tortoises and let them go free. On one island, there are many tortoises again!

Visitors over the centuries changed the islands. Sailors on whaling ships took giant tortoises for food, and people brought rats, goats and pigs that eat tortoise eggs or their food. Some tortoise populations disappeared.

Since 1959, the Galápagos National Park and the Charles Darwin Foundation have worked to save them. On Española, only 14 tortoises were found in the 1960s. Scientists raised their young, and nearly 2,000 young tortoises have since been released on the island. Today the main threats are invasive species, more tourism and more people, and illegal fishing, and strict rules protect the islands.

Galápagos Conservancy explains that the tortoises' ability to survive up to a year without food or water led pirates, whalers and fur sealers to store them alive aboard ships, while introduced rats, pigs, ants and goats preyed on eggs and hatchlings or competed for food. When the Galápagos National Park and the Charles Darwin Foundation were established in 1959, only 11 of 14 named populations remained. On Española, 14 survivors found in the 1960s became the basis of a breeding program that has returned nearly 2,000 young tortoises to the island.

UNESCO lists the main present threats as introduced species, increased tourism, population growth, illegal fishing and governance, and describes Ecuador's 1998 Special Regime Law, which regulates quarantine, fisheries, residency, tourism permits and quotas, waste and the control of introduced species. Waved albatrosses, whose whole world population breeds on Española, were reclassified as Critically Endangered in 2007.