A Galapagos giant tortoise, at the Galapaguera Interpretation Centre on San Cristobal.
The Española Giant Tortoise was once considered beyond saving.
After decades in decline, just over a dozen were left on the Galapagos island by the 1970s, most of them female. Their numbers were so sparse that some likely had gone decades without encountering another tortoise. Extinction seemed inevitable.
Then Diego came along. Flown in from the San Diego Zoo in 1976, the extremely sexually active tortoise went on to father upwards of 800 offspring. His considerable effort helped his species, known scientifically as Chelonoidis hoodensis, rebound to a population of 2000. It also turned him into a star, his sexual prowess the subject of articles in newspapers across the globe.
Now, the ancient tortoise is headed for retirement. Officials with the Galápagos National Park service announced that their breeding programme has been so successful that it is being terminated. Diego, who's believed to be over a hundred years old, will be released from captivity and returned to the wild.
Not that it'll slow his sex drive.
"He might actually amp it up," said James Gibbs, a professor of environmental and forest biology at the State University of New York in Syracuse who has assisted in the Galapagos programme. "I don't know - we shall see."
Little is known about Diego's early life. The long necked, yellow-faced tortoise is thought to have been picked up in Española during a scientific expedition sometime between 1900 and 1959. At some point, he landed at the zoo. When scientists discovered that Chelonoidis hoodensis was its own species, and that Diego was one of the few still in existence, he was brought back to the Galapagos for the breeding effort.
The tortoises had nearly died out, Gibbs said, after serving as food for whalers, colonists and others who passed through the islands. It did not help that settlers introduced goats, which depleted the cacti the massive turtles relied upon for food, water and shade.
Through captive breeding, which the Galapagos began in 1965, scientists have worked to restore the population of threatened tortoise species. The Giant Tortoise Restoration Initiative has an ambitious goal: to bring tortoise populations back to their historical numbers.
100-year-old giant tortoise Diego is set to return to the wild in the Galápagos Islands after his monumental efforts fathering 800 babies and almost single-handely saving his entire species.
— Dick King-Smith HQ (@DickKingSmith) January 12, 2020
Happy retirement Diego...https://t.co/E3jIvtmmLP
Despite the programme's successes, there was a setback in the case of Lonesome George, who died in 2012 as the last known member of the Chelonoidis abingdoni species. Over decades of mating attempts, he failed to produce any descendants.
"Only when George had died did an autopsy reveal it wasn't lack of potency that impeded his reproduction," the New York Times reported in 2017, "but a more anatomical ailment affecting his reproductive organ."
Diego had no such difficulty. At the breeding facility, he lived in a corral with his mates, a kind of reptilian Hugh Hefner. He won over the female tortoises who, Gibbs noted, choose whether or not to mate.
His popularity was not limited to his own species: Galapagos tourists became fond of him, too. Unlike most tortoises, he isn't reclusive, Gibbs said, and was often seen exploring his home or mating. He has been known to stare out at each of his visitors. Sometimes, he even hisses at them.
"It's not just that he has a name and a story," Gibbs said. "He is a very distinctive tortoise. He has this very bold personality, kind of broken scutes, a big yellow neck. He's just an out and about tortoise."
With Diego responsible for about 40 per cent of the tortoises produced in the breeding programme, there is debate among scientists over the consequences of having such a small gene pool. Gibbs said that this "bottleneck effect" is a concern, though the true impact won't be known until it is tested over time.
In 1976, there were 15 Galápagos giant tortoises left: 12 females, 3 males. Now there are 2,000:
— Alfons López Tena (@alfonslopeztena) January 12, 2020
40% descend from an aggressive, active, vocal in his mating male
60% descend from a more reserved male
Virtualy none from the 3rd
Tortoises form relationshipshttps://t.co/qG2K3rqC2g
The Galapagos National Park said in its statement that researchers had decided to end the breeding programme and release the tortoises after using mathematical models to predict population changes over the next hundred years.
"The conclusion was that the island has sufficient conditions to maintain the tortoise population, which will continue to grow normally - even without any new repatriation of juveniles," said Washington Tapia, director of the Giant Tortoise Restoration Initiative.
That result, Gibbs said, offers a hopeful message for conservation efforts across the world.
"I don't know what's been the most successful species restoration campaign; there are many," he said. "But this one is very, very inspirational, that we can truly take something written off as extinct to fully recovered, and let them carry on."
Diego is set to be released within the next few months, after being quarantined to avoid carrying seeds from plants that are not native to Española. Then, Gibbs said, he'll likely be released along with the other captive tortoises to a cactus-rich area in the middle of the island.
Given his "spryness," he could live another 20 years.