Tortoises Thriving on a Volcano’s Slopes

The largest island in Ecuador’s Galápagos archipelago is home to the booming population of the Alcedo giant tortoise, a cold-blooded reptile endemic to the island, where conservation efforts paid off to save the species and its importance in maintaining its surrounding ecosystems.

“Everything on Alcedo [volcano] seems to happen on tortoise time,” writes photographer Tui De Roy in her book A Lifetime in Galápagos. The pictures she took over the years are proof of the growth in the endangered species’ population on Isabela Island.

The slow-paced Alcedo – or Chelonoidis vandenburghi – can live more than a hundred years and has found ways to regulate its body temperature for the scorching hot days and chilly nights 900 meters above the tropical sea. To help protect the vulnerable species, the Galápagos National Park was established in 1959, and throughout the years, programs have been launched to further preserve the remaining tortoises. And efforts paid off: the tortoise’s population went from 6,320 mature individuals in 2015 to more than 15,000 on the volcano’s slopes, according to the nonprofit Galápagos Conservancy. The tortoise’s habitat benefits from the permanent paths and furrows the large animals create in their travels, the seeds of flowering plants they disperse with their poop, and the open meadows they maintain by acting as reptilian lawnmowers.