Scientists and conservationists alike are filled with hope that this project will be successful, and two extinct tortoise species will be brought back to life. The next part of the team's plan will be to bring those Pinta and Floreana relatives to Santa Cruz Island and hope two of them are able to mate, which would start the long process of repopulating the areas with tortoises. After all, these tortoises can live to be 150 years old, and that's a long time to keep track of a family tree. So the team of Yale scientists tracked down 17 tortoises that have high levels of Pinta and Floreana DNA in hopes of finding a creature that is a direct relative of Lonesome George. (MORE: Japanese Island Now Populated by Hundreds of Bunnies) From there, many different closely related species populated several of the Galápagos Islands, including the now-extinct Pinta Island and Floreana Island tortoises. It's believed that whalers threw several tortoises overboard near Wolf Island more than 150 years ago, Yale News said. They were used by sailors as food or to provide stability for ships for more than 200 years, the report added. In the 1500s, there were more than 250,000 alive, but that number dropped to about 3,000 in the 1970s. Tortoise populations have steadily declined over the last 500 years, according to the New York Times. The Pinta Island tortoise was officially extinct, despite efforts to revive the creatures.īut scientists are making one final effort to bring the species of Galápagos Island tortoise back from the dead, and the team of experts from Yale University might have found the DNA they need to save the turtles from being lost forever. When Lonesome George drew his last breath on June 24, 2012, it signaled the end of a species.
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