The Galapagos Islands are special because

“The Galapagos are special because we, in our wisdom, have decided to protect them as such. Long may we continue to be so sapiens…”

Galapagos Sapiens

Dominic Hamilton

Located 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) west of Ecuador, the Galapagos are an archipelago of volcanic islands and islets rising from the Pacific Ocean floor. They appear as an odd and entirely unexpected set of freckles on the cheek of the ocean, whether viewed on a desktop globe or Google Maps. In geological time, they rose from the water only yesterday. Scientists call this fracture in the Earth’s crust between two tectonic plates a volcanic hotspot—a hot location. Because the Galapagos Islands have never been connected to the mainland, they are unique.

The Galapagos Islands’ flora and animals had to endure hundreds of miles of ocean before humans intervened. Mammalsv nearly wholly failed to finish the voyage. Throughout millions of years, only a tiny rat survived. Reptiles rule the Galapagos fauna. How were they able to arrive there? Flash floods carried them from the banks of the continent’s rivers, and for weeks, they floated on rafts of vegetation skipped by capricious ocean currents. Eventually, they disembarked, fortunately pregnant.

These reptiles and many marine birds that descended onto these volcanic isles have evolved over millions of years to adapt to their surroundings. Their survival was based on “the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life,” as stated by Charles Darwin (in fact, this was the sub-title of the first edition of On The Origin of Species).

Thus, a land tortoise that was only a little bigger than your foot grew to be as long as a six-year-old child; a cormorant that benefited from underwater fishing instead of flying lost its ability to fly; one species of finch arrived and became so adapted to its surroundings that it gave rise to thirteen species today; and a land iguana that underwent a mutation to become a marine iguana, exclusive to the Islands, thrived and multiplied. The flora also changed and adjusted. For example, the scalesia tree, which can grow up to approximately 10 meters (30 feet) in the island highlands, is related to the little daisy.

Galapagos Islands are special because the islands are a living laboratory of evolution.

For thousands of years, the animals of the Galapagos Islands underwent solitary evolution. The islands were found in the middle of the 15th century by the Bishop of Panama, who was blown off course, but Man didn’t pay much attention to these “enchanted isles” until the 19th century. The mariners detested them. The term “enchanted” used in travel pamphlets is a mistranslation of the Spanish word “encantadas,” which in this case should be translated as “bewitched.”

With only a few freshwater sources, a black and ominous appearance, and frequent eruptions of volcanic fire, the archipelago was unappealing to any sailor worth their salt, especially during the half of the year when it was shrouded in garúa sea mist. The whaling trade, however, altered this. Vast schools of fish and cetaceans are brought north by the Humboldt Current, which delivers nutrients from the icy waters of Antarctica. Galapagos became almost as famous to the whalers who supplied whale oil to the people of the emerging towns of North America and Europe as San Francisco did during the gold rush.

Thus, a land tortoise that was only a little bigger than your foot grew to be as long as a six-year-old child; a cormorant that benefited from underwater fishing instead of flying lost its ability to fly; one species of finch arrived and became so adapted to its surroundings that it gave rise to thirteen species today; and a land iguana that underwent a mutation to become a marine iguana, exclusive to the Islands, thrived and multiplied. The flora also changed and adjusted. For example, the scalesia tree, which can grow up to approximately 10 meters (30 feet) in some island highlands, is related to the little daisy.

The Galapagos are special because the islands are a living laboratory of evolution.

The whalers severely damaged the habitats of the islands. They released domesticated animals for later use, cleared forests to burn whale fat, and took tens of thousands of enormous tortoises to consume their meat throughout their lengthy sea voyages. The five-tiered turtles kept in the ship’s holds could survive for three months without water, making them the perfect meals-on-shells.

These tragic occurrences are insignificant compared to Man’s millennium-long destruction of the South American ecosystem. With a few notable exceptions, all of the continent’s major land mammals were wiped off within a few thousand years of Homo sapiens crossing the Bering Straits. The survivors acquired an innate aversion to humans. Mammals on land ran a mile. The birds flapped to stay alive. This is the world we live in today; this is our accepted relationship with the natural world.

The Galapagos are special because the animals have no fear of Man.

Fortunately, the islands’ animals did not acquire an ingrained or inherited dread of humans between the arrival of whalers and the creation of the Galápagos National Park in 1959. They don’t even stealthily go to the side to avoid us because they don’t see us as predators or reasons to be concerned. The main reason for this is that there aren’t any significant carnivores on the Islands; the largest predator is the Galapagos hawk. In reality, when visiting a Galápagos visitor site, you have to be careful not to trip over a sea lion, walk on a blue-footed booby’s nest, or trip over a family of basking marine iguanas.

The animals of the Galapagos are blissfully ignorant of the fact that, in a matter of hundreds of kilometers, their relatives would have been skinned, boiled with potatoes, clubbed, clobbered, feathered, and sold by people like us before you could say “evolutionary biology.” The Galápagos Islands are not only the “origin of the Origin of Species,” but they are also one of the rare locations on Earth where you may freely watch these species in comfort and have enough time to ponder their unique traits and our place in the vast tree of life: to understand that we are only a single twig at the end of a single branch of that tree and that we owe it something.
Spending time with the Galápagos Islands’ wildlife offers a unique opportunity for introspection. During this journey, I took a deep breath and performed a series of underwater loops and twists while holding a newborn sea lion pup. I sat under thorny cacti, watching land iguanas that looked like dragons. Watching tropical birds, pelicans, boobies, lava gulls, and storm petrels glide on the perilous currents above the shimmering, silvery sea, I stood on a wind-swept cliff edge. And not a single one of them gave me the slightest glance. The Galápagos are unique because we have wisely chosen to preserve them as such. May we always be so intelligent…

Learn more about our Galapagos Islands tours