All tortoises are turtles. Tortoises are turtles who are designed for land, turtles are water only, and terrapins are both land and water. There are no terrapins on Galapagos.

In the world today, tortoises only exist in the wild on Galapagos and Aldebra Island (near the Seychelles). They used to be worldwide, but the advent of mammals destroyed them on the mainland and the island tortoises were destroyed by humans more recently.

Eleven subspecies of tortoises live here on Galapagos, 5 on Isabella, the other 6 on individual islands. There are only about 15,000 left.

Tortoises lay eggs in nests and the eggs are roughly size of tennis ball. Many years the eggs don't hatch (too dry or too wet) or the hatchlings don't have enough food. Every 2-3 years, a group of "cohorts" survive. This used to be enough to sustain population.

Island of Pinzon-first tortoise population which had captive breeding program. All the babies were being eaten by introduced black rats, so people took the eggs off island. Temperature determines gender of hatchling and can't sex them until they're 20 years old., so there were many mistakes early on. Now, they take hatchlings. People have tried to eliminate the rats, but have been unsuccessful.

Island of Espanola-In 1971, only 14 tortoises remained. All were taken off the island, 2 males and 12 females. Also, found one male in San Diego zoo, who sent him back. Now there is a successful captive breeding program, they have eliminated goats on Espanola and reintroduced babies. A big success, since they now have a breeding population there!

Island of Pinta-only one left, a male named Lonesome George. No female could be found. Ended up trying to breed him with females off a similar subspecies. First, he had no interest, then no luck.

Alsado Volcano on Isabella-Northern Isabella didn't used to have goats until 7 or 8 years ago. Now, approximately 60,000 goats, and a campaign to shoot them.