Articles > Galapagos Islands

Before travelling to the Galapagos, I knew that its animals were famously tame; I didn't realize, however, that they are often downright inquisitive. During my first jet-lagged swim, a pelican splashed down by my head, and then kept me company wherever I swam. Next day, a penguin floated alongside me, gazing into my eyes. Whenever we sat on a beach, young sea lions would haul themselves towards us, then press their whiskers against our legs; whenever you land near trees, inquisitive flycatchers hop onto the nearest branch - during the nesting season they seize your hair to line their nests. Mockingbirds like to undo shoe-laces, and the Galapagos Hawk, which must be the world's tamest bird of prey, flies within a few yards to scrutinize newcomers. When Darwin first came to the islands, he described with astonishment how 'A gun is here almost superfluous; for with the muzzle I pushed a hawk out of the branch of a tree.'

The animals are fearless because they have almost never been hunted; the islands, which are 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador, are one of the few places in the world that never had any original inhabitants. The tameness is so ingrained that the animals are slow to learn fear, even when they are in danger. Darwin described how he saw a boy killing finches and doves when they came to drink at a well. The boy told him that he did the same whenever he wanted some meat.

Eight of the main islands and the many little islets remain uninhabited, and are almost unchanged since Darwin's visit in 1835. The Ecuadorian government has sensibly restricted hotels to the two small towns, so visitors need to be based on a boat. My own, the Beagle III, usually carries ten passengers and five crew as well as a naturalist guide. Our routine was to cruise to a new destination during the night, making our first land visit in the cool of the morning. After a rest on the boat, we would go snorkeling, and then return for lunch, which usually consisted of fresh fish or lobsters caught by the crew. After a snooze or a read, we would go snorkeling at a new destination, before ending the day with another land visit.

Although I was always enthralled to see Red-footed Boobies, Flightless Cormorants, Giant Tortoises (so huge that it can take several men to carry one), and exquisite colonies of flamingoes, my greatest treat was the snorkeling. Despite the fact that there isn't much coral (the marine life may not be as spectacular as it is in the Red Sea) I am convinced that the snorkeling in the Galapagos must rank the most enjoyable in the world.

Every site provided a stunning display, different on every occasion but always including thousands and thousands of fish, many of the most exotic shape and colour: Bumphead Damselfish, Blue Chin Parrotfish, Moorish Idols, Yellow-bellied Triggerfish, Hieroglyphic Hawkfish. Some of them sulk alone between rocks, others dart about in pairs, or gather together into enormous, glinting shoals. This myriad of fish would be enough to keep any swimmer entranced for hours, but it is the larger fish and mammals of the ocean that make the snorkeling so compelling.

Green Turtles swim so close that it is possible to gape into their antediluvian faces; Spotted Eagle Rays gracefully flap their wing-like fins; White-tipped Reef Sharks undulate their way among unconcerned shoals of fish (we also remained unconcerned: there have only been two reported shark attacks in the Galapagos, neither of which were fatal). On one lucky occasion I saw a Flightless Cormorant (world population: 700 pairs) kinking and swerving in the water just below me.

But the real stars were the sea lions, which joined us whenever we swam. It was thrilling to gaze into their soulful eyes, which underwater become as large as those of a cow. Their bodies, many shades of bronze and gold, reflected the sun while they twirled playfully around us. Sometimes, instead of inspecting us, they just behaved as if there was no alien presence, and we then had the delight of watching their games and caresses.

Sea lions have to spend so few hours catching fish that they seem to have plenty of spare time for playing. They are also very inquisitive. On the previous trip a sea lion had entered our boat and found its way into the kitchen. On a more famous occasion a sea lion broke into a Californian lighthouse, passed through the sitting room, climbed the stairs, and then enjoyed itself in the bath. They love to body surf, allowing the crashing waves to carry them almost up to the beach, before doing a swift return-dive so that they can repeat the performance. They also like to tease Marine Iguanas: when the iguana is just about to reach the safety of land, the sea lion grabs it by the tail, then pulls it back to sea; the iguana is then released, only to be grabbed again just before it reaches land.

Whenever we landed on a sandy beach, we passed within touching distance of sea lions. It took the greatest self-restraint not to stroke them. In fact, touching any animal is quite rightly forbidden and because of the islands' fragile ecology, all aspects of land-trips are strictly regulated. All tourist boats have to book in advance the precise time, date, and place of their landings, which must be at specific visitor sites. Every group is accompanied by a licensed guide. You have to keep to a discreetly signposted trail, and you aren't allowed to use the islands as a lavatory (in case you introduce an alien organism). In search of a good photograph I occasionally strayed from the path, but was always gently ordered into line by our guide.

The animals are so tame, however, that keeping to the trail is no hardship; Blue-footed Boobies quite often nest in the middle of the path, and you have to squeeze within inches of their stiletto-like bills.

No one minds the strict regulations, for they have been made to protect one of the most remarkable wildlife areas of the world. Of all the land-based animals on the Galapagos (including reptiles, mammals, and land-breeding birds) more than 80% are unique to the islands; it would be a tragedy if their tiny populations were reduced by degrading the area’s fragile ecology. The entire flamingo population is only a few hundred; the penguins (the world's most northern species) breed on only two islands; the world's population of Waved Albatross breeds on only one; the Lava gull (the world's rarest gull) has a population of only 400 pairs. Equally important, the islands are the world's best living museum of evolution.

A little knowledge of evolution, and of its late acceptance by scientists, is necessary to get the most enjoyment out of the Galapagos. Here is a very simplified explanation. When Darwin left England in 1831 most of his fellow countrymen believed that the earth and all the species on it were created by a single divine act. Most people, including the educated, accepted that the act of Creation had taken place on the 23rd October, 4004 BC, a date worked out by Archbishop Ussher in the Seventeenth Century. It wasn't Darwin, however, who discovered that these beliefs were wrong; in fact he acknowledged many other experts who had already written about evolution. In particular, geologists had proved to anyone who wanted to listen (few did) the absurdity of Archbishop Ussher's calculations. Darwin's visit was a turning point because it provided him with plenty of vivid proof of evolution, and stimulated him into providing the first convincing explanation of the mechanism by which it worked - namely, natural selection.

Darwin noticed that all animals in the Galapagos were similar to those in South America (the nearest point was six hundred miles away) but because there were slight differences there must have been a process of evolution. The archipelago is a superb museum of this process because it has never been joined to the mainland, and when the animals developed variations, these variations weren't swamped by a huge genetic pool.

The islands weren't joined to the mainland because they are essentially the tops of huge volcanoes that have risen from the sea. How did these bare black chunks of lava get their first plants and animals? Many of the animals probably arrived on the rafts of vegetation that are carried westwards by currents from South America. Some of the plants seeds may have been blown by the wind; though it is thought that most of them were carried by birds - either first eaten and then delivered in droppings, or attached to their feathers or feet. Darwin, who was wonderfully thorough with his experiments, was able to germinate 82 seedlings of 5 plant species, all from a ball of earth attached to a partridge's foot, which had been stored for three years in a museum drawer.

Not only are the plants and animals different from those on the mainland, they also differ from island to island. The Vice-Governor of the islands told Darwin that he could recognize at a glance from which island any Giant tortoise came. Although Darwin didn't believe him at the time, he later realized that the animals had adapted to the different requirements of each different territory: on some islands most of the nutritious vegetation is out of reach of a Giant tortoise, so on those islands it has developed a longer neck and an arch on the front of its shell so that it can reach the necessary food.

When Darwin eventually studied the islands' thirteen different finches, he deduced that they had descended from one common ancestor, which had adapted and evolved to fill different ecological niches. Although all the thirteen finches look similar, each one has a different beak; some, for instance, are thick and strong for crushing nuts, others are long and slender for probing cactus flowers. There are no woodpeckers on the Galapagos, so one species of finch now exploits this niche by ferreting grubs out of tree-trunks. They use cactus spines or thin twigs, often having to experiment with several different curvatures before selecting the best for the particular hole. If they find a particularly effective twig or spine, they carry it from tree to tree.

Darwin did not feel ready to defy the bishops until quarter of a century after his return. But in 1859 he finally published On the Origin of Species, which demonstrated natural selection with a mass of evidence. Darwin explained that every organism, whether animal or plant, is always endowed with variations. An animal may be born with a variation that will help it in the struggle for life, and this animal is more likely to survive and breed; those born with disadvantages are obviously more likely to die without breeding. Beneficial variations are passed on to the offspring, and thus with the passage of several generations, the species will adapt and evolve.

Two display cases of moths in the Natural History Museum provide a marvellous example of this process. (Because insects breed so quickly, the adaptations of successive generations are evident far more quickly than with the larger animals. It is a question of days rather than years.) The first display case shows a collection of Peppered Moths that were collected from the Midlands in the 1850s; their basic colour is off-white, which makes them resemble the lichens on the trees where they settle. With this camouflage they were less likely to be gobbled by birds. But the next display case from the 1900s shows a collection of Peppered Moths which are brown. At this time industrial pollution had destroyed all the lichens, so a white moth would have stuck out a mile. The brownish moths were therefore more likely to survive, and they passed on their beneficial genes. In 1956 the government passed the Clean Air Act, and since then the lichens have returned, and the moths have been observed to be reverting to their original pale colour.

At some stage, this type of adaptation becomes so marked and so important that a new species is formed. A simple explanation of the word 'species' is that an animal from one species can't usually produce progeny by mating with an animal from another; if progeny are produced (such as mules), they are usually sterile. If different species were able to interbreed, the long development of beneficial characteristics would soon be wasted.

There are thirteen main islands in the Galapagos, and five have small human settlements. The total population is 12,000, most of whom live in the two only towns. Whenever we landed in a settled area, there were of course fewer regulations, and we weren't obliged to keep to a footpath: the local ecology had already been damaged. Our captain, Augusto Cruz, was born on an inhabited island, Floreana, so we made a visit to his parents who live an hour's walk from the landing spot. Their simple one-storey house, shaded by huge tropical plum trees, looks quite comfortable today; but when Augusto's parents first arrived on this semi-desert island in 1936, there were no amenities of any sort, and life must have been gruelling. They managed to raise twelve children without any medical help; the husband acted as midwife. The family's survival appeared all the more surprising when I learnt more about the Floreana's history.

Before the Twentieth Century various attempts had been made to settle on the island, but all had failed. Despite these failures, 22 Norwegians made an organised attempt to settle on the island in 1927, but after only two years they had all given up. Soon after, an eccentric German named Herr Ritter arrived with his mistress; because of his worries about lack of dentistry, he had his teeth extracted in Germany and replaced with a pair of stainless-steel dentures. After three years, the Wittmer family arrived, soon followed by an Austrian pseudo-baroness accompanied by a harem of men. They all, of course, hated each other.

The main disasters were as follows. One of the harem was shot in the stomach by an unknown assailant. The Baroness and one of her lovers mysteriously disappeared, never to be seen again. A henchman-cum-slave of the Baroness was found mummified on a beach. According to his mistress, Herr Ritter died of a stroke, but according to Frau Wittmer he was poisoned. In 1951 Frau Wittmer's stepson (a child of her husband's previous marriage) drowned during a fishing trip, and this death was followed by the usual spate of rumours. In 1963 an elderly American lady, who had landed with other cruise passengers, stopped to go to the lavatory, saying that she would catch up; despite exhaustive searches she was never seen again, and the bones weren't discovered until 1981. In 1968 Frau Wittmer's son-in-law failed to reappear after gathering firewood. The body has never been found.

It isn't only this unfortunate series of mishaps which has deterred potential settlers from Floreana. Like most of the other islands, it has little fresh water. It is lucky that the Galapagos have been such a hostile environment for incomers, because wherever man has been, their accompanying animals have escaped, and successfully bred into wild populations. The introduction of horses, goats, rats, cattle, pigs, and even dogs and cats have all been devastating for wildlife. More than 20,000 wild pigs roam on one island; they are especially destructive because they dig up the eggs of the rare Giant Tortoise, and they eat the eggs of turtles even while they are being laid.

Feral goats breed alarmingly fast in this empty ecological niche; in 1959 settlers left three goats to forage on Isla Pinta; by 1973 they had 30,000. On Santiago, excess of goats has caused the extinction of the magnificent Land Iguana, which was once so common on the island that Darwin found no room to pitch his tent. Continuing attempts are made to get rid of the feral populations, but it is a difficult task. On one small island, Pinzon, a huge effort was made to exterminate the rats. Crisscrossing paths were cut right across the island, with only three meters between them. For a period of three months, rat poison was sprinkled at every intersection. The entire island was then inspected, and it was believed that the rats had been exterminated. But after only a year, the whole island was once again crawling with them.

Not all conservation programmes have ended in failure. In 1959 the whole archipelago (except for the 10% already settled) was declared a National Park, and since then there has been a constant effort to return all the unsettled areas to their original state. Four islands have now been denuded of goats; dogs have been eradicated on Isabela; some races of the precious Giant Tortoise have been bred in captivity and it has been possible to return them to their ancestral homes.

Fernandina remains the largest island in the world without any imported animal species. These difficult battles are very well worth fighting, not just because so many of the animals and plants are unique but also because the Galapagos has become a wonderful example of the symbiosis that can exist between animals and man. Modern tourism brings very few benefits, but this symbiosis is one of them. On the animals' side they get our protection; without this many of them (for instance, the gorillas in Rwanda, or the tigers in India) would probably be extinct. Our benefit is the joy and serenity they bring to our minds - a therapy that is increasingly needed in this frenetic world.

My own best dose of animal therapy happened when I was swimming in a bay of Espanola, an uninhabited island. After noticing a group of sea lions playing with some yellow passion fruit (they must have been jettisoned from a boat), I grabbed one of the fruits and swam further along the shore. When the next sea lion came to inspect me, I threw the fruit in its direction. It leapt forwards, grabbed the fruit, and then swam towards me, shaking its head. It then behaved just like a retriever, pretending that it wanted to retain a ball, but teasing me with it and clearly wanting to play a game. So I lunged at the sea lion, which immediately released the fruit. I then repeatedly threw it for the sea lion to retrieve. We went on playing for a few minutes, until the fruit became so chewed that it was too soggy to be buoyant; the sea lion then became bored, tucked in its flippers, and plunged like a torpedo down to the bottom of the sea.

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