How 3,000 giant tortoises are rebuilding Española after near extinction

On Española, one of the smaller islands in the Galápagos, the landscape is being reshaped by animals that spend much of their time moving slowly through it. Giant tortoises push through grasses, knock down vegetation and leave broad paths behind them as they travel. Their effect is easy to miss if viewed as ordinary grazing. Across the island, though, those movements can determine which plants dominate, where open ground remains and whether there is enough clear space for one of the Galápagos' most distinctive seabirds to get airborne.The tortoises are returning to a place where they once disappeared almost completely. Their recovery is changing more than the fortunes of their own species.How Española’s tortoises came backEspañola once supported thousands of giant tortoises. Human visitors altered that balance badly. Pirates and whalers hunted the reptiles for food during the 19th Century, while goats introduced to the island escaped into the wild and multiplied. Their grazing stripped native vegetation and left much of the island in poor condition.As reported by the BBC, by the 1970s, only 14 Española tortoises remained, 12 females and two males. Conservationists removed them for ...