TORTOISES ON TOUR

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 986, 31 May 1930, Page 31

TORTOISES ON TOUR

GIFT TO NEW SOUTH WALES Eight Galapagos tortoises have left the Bronx Zoo on a good-will tour to Sydney, to be presented to New South Wales. The migration of the huge testudinates is part of a plan to save them from extinction. At present, at the age of three to five years, they only weigh seven to nine pounds, but if their natural food, the cactus, holds out, they are expected to weigh 5001 b and to live 400 years. These tortoises are portion of a collection of ISO brought back from Galapagos by Dr. Charles Townsend, leader of the New York Zoological Society’s expedition. He says he found the tortoises harassed and the young eaten by dogs and pigs—wild, ferocious descendants of sailors’ pets left on the islands in the last century or so. Those which survive rae in danger of being eaten by man, because they have been esteemed for food since sailing ships began calling at Galapagos for water in 1780 Sailors discovered that a 4001 b tortoise could live without food for months and still provide good food for them. The tortoises have been distributed in Florida, Southern California. Louisiania, Bermuda and the Hawaiian Islands. Each is tagged with a number. Half-yearly reports will be sent to the zoo authorities in America on their food, weight and measurements. All those at the Branx Zoo are in good health. “Buster,” who was received there in 1902, weighing 141 b, now weighs 3551 b.