FIRST TORTOISE BORN IN BREEDING CENTRE AT CERRO COLORADO
Cerro Colorado is a purpose-built breeding centre for San Cristobal giant tortoises, (Geochelone chathamensis). It is set in the exceptionally beautiful Galapagos National Park which is so rich in biodiversity. At the moment it hosts 31 reproductive tortoises who live in well equipped corrals, the complex also has offices and a Breeding Centre with an incubating room - in fact everything necessary to facilitate semi-captive breeding.
Today, two years after work began to move the tortoises from their natural habitat on Punta Pitt to their new home in Cerra Colorade, the first of the many hoped-for tortoises has been born.
The little tortoise, named Genesis, will be kept in a dark box for a month, until all the nourishment supplied in his yolk sack has been absorbed. The intention is to replicate what happens within the underground nest in the wild after the baby tortoises break out of their eggs and before they emerge into the outside world. Later he will be placed in a corral where he will be fed and monitored regularly.
The birth of the first tortoise in the semi-natural reserve at Cerro Colorado is immensely satisfying to the park wardens who day after day work so hard for the conservation of the native and endemic species of the Galapagos Islands.
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