News archive for 2008
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Floreana Mockingbird – Fire Ant Eradication
This project is still our main fund-raising focus. We already have some funds available to send to continue the work that has been done this year with our assistance, so please continue to donate. We will be making a special end of year appeal before sending our next contribution, so let’s see if we can […]
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Galapagos Volunteers
Pete Hiemstra, the volunteer that we sent to Galapagos to help with the CDF Marine Department’s database, has now been there for 3 months, has made good progress in his job and has also been enjoying life in the islands. He is contributing a regular blog of his experiences, the link is http://bathic.blogspot.com/ He is likely to […]
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Talks
Julian Fitter gave a talk in Tauranga as part of the University of Waikato in Tauranga’s Darwin Lecture Series. The talk was entitled ‘Darwin and Galapagos’ and while not focussing specifically on the conservation issues, did end up on that note. The talks theme was how his visit to Galapagos affected Darwin’s thinking and helped […]
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FOGNZ AGM
This was held in Auckland on July 15th and was well attended.
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New Governor for Galapagos
On September 8th, Eliecer Cruz resigned as Governor of Galapagos, almost exactly a year after he was appointed. He was replaced by Jorge Torres. Eliecer is a Director of the Charles Darwin Foundation and previously served as head of the Galapagos National Park and as WWF representative in Galapagos. We have no information as to […]
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New CEO for Charles Darwin Foundation
The CDF have announced the appointment of Dr. Gabriel Lopez as Executive Director to replace Graham Watkins who will be leaving in January 2009 after four years in the post.
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Imaginative Land swap
Anyone who has visited Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island recently will know that it has grown exponentially over the last 30 years and has no further room to expand, they had to obtain a piece of land from the National Park in order to build a bus station. Now the Mayor of Puerto Ayora […]
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Park patrol apprehends illegal fisher
Last month the National Park patrol boat ‘Yoshka’ apprehended a small fishing boat ‘Yhilvar’ some 14 miles south of Caleta Iguana at the south-western extremity of Isabela. The crew were using a longline with over 300 hooks. A second fishing vessel was also spotted but fled leaving a 250 hook longline behind. This constant poaching […]
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New Constitution for Ecuador
On September 28th, Ecuador approved a new constitution with 63% of voters in favour – this is a significant figure as voting is compulsory in Ecuador.
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Mooring Buoys for Galapagos
One of the problems caused by having so many tourist boats in Galapagos is the damage that their anchors cause to the marine environment. With more than 100 vessels anchoring twice a day, that is in excess of 73,000 anchors pounding the seabed each year, doing unknown and untold damage to the seabed and its […]
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Lonesome George – will he become a Dad?
20 years ago, Lonesome George, the last surviving Pinta Tortoise Geochelone Abingdoni, lived all alone and in a pen at the Charles Darwin Research Station in Galapagos. He was overweight and no one really knew what to do with him. Then along came Dr. Linda Cayot, the CDRS resident herpetologist and decided to try and get him to breed.
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Shark Tracking – a valuable conservation tool
The Galapagos National Park and the Charles Darwin Foundation together with Conservation International (CI) and WWF, with the technical assistance of a researchers group from Davis University in California have been working on tagging sharks within the Galapagos Marine Reserve in order to establish their migration patterns within the archipelago and with other locations or shark ‘hot spots’ in the region.
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Lichens & Fungi
Recently, Frank Bungharz from the Botany Department at CDF visited Isabela with colleagues from Switzerland and Mexico to collect specimens of lichen from the genus ‘Usnea’ of which there are more than 30 species in the islands.
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Captive Breeding of Galapagos Birds
In September Harriet Good, the Senior Curator of Birds from the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and Jersey Zoo, with the help of Cristina Georgii from CDF, held a workshop on breeding wild bird species in captivity.
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Social Science Project
Given the importance of the socio economic situation in Galapagos, it is good to see the appointment of Dr. Christoph Grenier as manager of this project which will collect, evaluate and monitor information on the residents and others involved in Galapagos. This will help us develop models for sustainable development in all areas, particularly tourism, […]
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Fundar Galapagos launches Ecological Restoration Manual
Fundar Galapagos, a Galapagos NGO run by Carlos Zapata, has recently published a manual to help farmers, landowners and others reintroduce native plant species as a means of helping restore the natural ecology of Galapagos.
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Pet Sterilisation Programme
The local Inter-institutional Committee for the Management of Introduced Species (CIMEI) together with Animal Balance, an NGO from the USA, have initiated a pet sterilisation campaign on San Cristobal. Over a 5-day period, 117 dogs and cats were sterilised. This is part of an ongoing campaign to reduce the number of unwanted pets which almost […]
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International Coastal Clean-up day
More than 2200kg of rubbish was collected on Santa Cruz by 150 shore based volunteers and 35 divers, on September 20th, International Coastal Clean-up Day. The event was organised by the Galapagos National Park, the Ecuadorian Navy, the CDF, Fundar Galapagos and other NGOs.
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More Eradication Campaigns planned
Illustrating the beneficial effects that kiwi training and technology has had in Galapagos, the Galapagos National Park has announced a series of campaigns aimed at getting rid of a variety of pest species including: Goats from Santa Cruz. Rats from North Seymour We will expand on these campaigns in the next issue of Nannopterum.
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Fishermen follow Simon Peter
If my memory serves me correctly, it was Simon Peter who left his nets to become a ‘fisher of men’. Now some 20 Galapagos fishermen have left their commercial nets and hooks behind them to become involved in the tourism industry.
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Road Kill in Galapagos
Much has changed in the last 43 years, and the birds of Santa Cruz now have another human introduced problem to survive, being hit by a speeding motor vehicle.
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Illegal Lobsters Intercepted
Police in Salinas on the coast of Ecuador arrested a Galapagos fisherman, Edison Martinez Meza with 234 rock lobster tails.
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Illegal Fisher Apprehended
On May 20th 2008, the Galapagos National Park patrol boat Guadalupe River, apprehended an illegal fishing boat, the Dona Blanca 1 from Manta on the coast of Ecuador.
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Recycling the Flotsam & Jetsam
Rubbish is a problem the world over and particularly so in isolated islands like the Galapagos, but it is not just the rubbish that they produce themselves that is a problem, it is the rubbish that gets washed up on their beaches which may come from almost anywhere, but most likely from the waters off Peru and Chile, or from Panama.
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Coffee in Galapagos: A new boost for Agriculture in the Islands
Coffee provides an important opportunity for local farmers. It is a high-value, low-volume product that can generate significant income.
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Floreana Mockingbird Mimus trifasciatus
On May 20, the Floreana Mockingbird was uplisted from Endangered to Critically Endangered, the highest threat category on the IUCN Red List.
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Friends for Lonesome George
Our sister organisation, Galapagos Conservation Trust, along with the British Chelonia Group, are raising funds to bring tortoises back to Pinta.
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Galapagos and the Green Turtle
In March of this year, six CDF volunteers visited Quinta Playa on southern Isabela, to help monitor green turtle Chelonia mydas, nesting activity.
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Shark Tagging
CDF and the National Park have been carrying out shark tagging studies in the northern islands of Darwin & Wolf since 2006.
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CDF Initiates Shark Tagging Study
Following on from this research, on May 31 of this year CDF scientists began tagging white tip reef sharks (Triaenodon obesus) off Santa Cruz Island, starting a one-year project to closely follow five individuals and gather information on the species’ biology and behaviour.
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Kiwi Techniques passed on
Park rangers from the Machalilla National Park on the coast of Ecuador, have succeeded in eradicating goats from Isla La Plata, an uninhabited island near Manta.
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Operation Mangrove Finch
In April park warden Freddy Azuero and three scientists from the Charles Darwin Foundation undertook a field trip to study the mangrove finch Cactospiza heliobates, a critically endangered species with only around 100 individuals left.
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Iguanas repatriated
On April 29th, in the presence of the Minister of the Environment, Marcela Aguiñaga, 74 land iguanas Conolophus subcristatus were released on Baltra, the final stage of a 28 year, very successful, conservation programme.
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Jessica Oil Spill
In April, Market International, the insurers of the tanker Jessica that ran aground in San Cristobal in 2001, agreed to pay the Galapagos National Park $3.375,000 US for the damage caused by the oil spill.
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Eruption on Cerro Azul
On May 29th, Cerro Azul, the volcano at the bottom left of Isabela, erupted.
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Galapagos to be the only Feral Goat-free archipelago by 2010
Galapagos to be the only Feral Goat-free archipelago in the world by 2010.
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Lonesome George could leave behind offspring.
After 36 years of continual and exhaustive efforts, when it seemed impossible that the tortoise called “Lonesome George” – the last survivor of the Pinta Island giant tortoise species (Geochelone abigdoni) – would be able to reproduce, this morning park rangers in charge of the “Fausto Llerena” Captive Breeding Centre found a nest with eggs laid last night by one of the two Wolf Volcano females that have shared a pen with him since 1993.
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Avian Malaria detected in Galapagos Penguins
Scientists from the Galapagos National Park’s Fabricio Valverde Laboratory, the Charles Darwin Foundation, the University of Missouri, and led by Dr Patricia Parker of the St Louis Zoo, detected the presence of Plasmodium in several Galapagos penguins while researching illnesses affecting avian species in the Galapagos Islands.
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Tourist Yacht Sinks
On July 2nd, the motor yacht Spondylus contrived to sink in Darwin Bay on Genovesa in the north of the islands.
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RSNZ & Darwin 200
We have been in touch with the Royal Society of New Zealand with specific regard to the Darwin 200, which is in 2009 and celebrates the 200th year of his birth, the 150th anniversary of the publication of ‘On the Origin of Species’ and the 50th anniversary of the Charles Darwin Foundation. More on our […]
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Charitable Status
We have been formally advised by the Charities Commission that we are now a registered charity, our registration number is CC20360. Any donations to us should now be tax deductible.
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Floreana Mockingbird – Fire Ant Appeal
In December we put out an appeal to raise funds to help eradicate the invasive little red fire ant Wasmannia auropunctata from Champion Island off Floreana, one of only two surviving breeding places for the Floreana Mockingbird, an endangered species. As a result of this we were able to send $1,500 US to the Charles […]
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Volunteer Database and GIS Expert
In August this year we are sending a professional volunteer, Peter Hiemstra, to Galapagos to help the CDF Marine department re-organise and improve their databases. Peter is a database and GIS expert currently working for the Department of Conservation.
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Prizes
Ramon Munoz from La Coruna University in Spain has won the “Clean Sea” prize for his research into the spiny lobster in Galapagos.
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Shark Census
CDF have started a shark census to establish population numbers and distribution, this will include a map of the migration routes used by hammerhead sharks, as a first step towards positive measures to ensure their conservation and survival.
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New Head of Botany
CDF has a new Head of Botany, a position that has been vacant for some time. Mark Gardner is the new incumbent, he has been collaborating with CDF for several years and has participated in control and quarantine programs for introduced plants in the archipelago and so has a good knowledge of the problems and […]
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Tourism Model Review
CDF has been working with Galapagos National Park and other institutions to develop a new model for tourism in the islands. Galapagos led the way in the 1970’s with its blueprint for ‘ecotourism’ which has been copied the world over. However as Darwin noted, it is the organism best adapted to change that will survive […]
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Mockingbird Names
The Galapagos Mockingbird Nesomimus spp. has suffered a name change and is now just ‘Mimus spp. This is likely due to genetic research, more on this when information becomes available.
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Galapagos National Park Director Dismissed
Marcela Aguinaga Vallejo, Minister of the Environment, has removed biologist Raquel Molina Moreira from her post as Director of the Galapagos National Park Service.
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Sea Lion deaths on Pinta
In February, 53 Galapagos sea lions Zalophus wollebacki were found beaten to death on Pinta in the north of the Galapagos archipelago.
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Ecuadorian Government seeks sustainable economy for Galapagos
President Rafael Correa has outlined plans to develop an alternative strategy with the object of providing all the power needs of the people of Galapagos from renewable resources, primarily wind and solar.
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Project Ergal
This is a project to develop renewable energy sources on the four inhabited islands of Baltra, Isabela, Floreana and Santa Cruz.
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Immigrations Problems – A new Plan!
Galapagos has a serious immigration problem. Most Ecuadorians do not have a right to live in the Galapagos, but do have the right to visit freely.
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Illegal Fishing
An illegal stash of more than 5,000 sea cucumbers of the species Sticopus horrens was seized in the Galapagos Islands immediately after the Galapagos Park Service confiscated another 10,318 units of this protected species.