Darwin's Enchanted Islands

Happy Darwin Day!  

Today marks the 112th birthday of the famous British naturalist, best known for his book On the Origin of Species, which laid out his theory of evolution through natural selection.  Darwin was also a frequent zoo-goer, who used his experiences observing animals at the London Zoo to help formulate and illustrate his theories.

In my last post, I mentioned how few reptiles there were that I could think of that I hadn't seen before.  It turns out, I forgot one major herp that's been on my bucket list for years - the marine iguana.  It's the only lizard species which regularly goes out to sea, diving underwater to forage on algae that it scrapes from rocks, all while being buffeted by the waves.  It's one of the most unique, strange-looking lizards in the world, and no zoos or aquariums have any at this time.  There have been records of the species being kept for years - Brookfield Zoo maintained a group in the 1960's - but it has never bred.  The Ecuadorian government, which oversees the Galapagos Islands, forbids their exportation.

Taxidermy marine iguanas in a diorama at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science

Actually, considering how scientifically fascinating they are, there is very, very little in the way of Galapagos wildlife in zoos.  Not only are marine iguanas absent, but so are Galapagos land iguanas, and the smaller lizards.  The birds don't fare better - I've never seen a Galapagos penguin (very similar to the African penguins which are abundant in zoos), a blue-footed booby, any of Darwin's famous finches, or - one of the top five birds I'd love to see in person - a Galapagos flightless cormorant.  Part of me has always wished I could see a full spectrum of Galapagos wildlife, similar to what we can see for Madagascar or New Guinea in zoos around the world.

The sole example of unique Galapagos wildlife that you're likely to see in a zoo (even an Ecuadorian one) are the giant tortoises.  You can also see some birds that live on the islands, but only as part of a much larger natural range, such as American flamingos and white-cheeked pintails.  I know that the Houston Zoo is planning a major Galapagos exhibit as part of its current masterplan, but exactly what that will entail (besides tortoises) I'm not quite sure.

I'm a huge lover of zoos (obviously), but it's probably just as well that, at least for now, we leave the Galapagos alone.  Zoos and aquariums are already struggling to manage the populations that they have in sustainable numbers without added several more.  The islands, set off from the world by the sea and largely protected from disturbance, are their own zoo - it's possible that if some of the species became common place in foreign zoos, tourism to the islands would drop off and much-needed revenue for conservation would disappear.

Maybe staying so far and remote from the rest of the world, its animals largely hidden from view except for visitors and BBC film crews, makes the wildlife of the Galapagos that much more mysterious and that much more appealing to me.  Which just means that someday, I'll have to go...

The only marine iguana left in Chicago - at the Field Museum