Death of a true one of a kind....

grimmace19

Sunday morning the world lost a true one-of-a-kind. Lonesome George the last Pinta Tortoise from the Galapagos Islands passed away. He was certified as the rarest animal in the world by the Guinness Book of World Records. Though most of you likely don't care, I just wanted to spread the word as he was certainly one of the most influential creatures for conservation purposes.

Thankfully last fall my wife and I were able to go on our dream trip to the Galapagos Islands and had the pleasure of spending a day at the Darwin Research Center where George had lived since 1971. Here are a few pictures of the big guy that I snapped when we were there.

Systems

Staying on top of the news, you are a few days behind my friend!:cheesygrin:

Awesome pics!
They tried everything to get him to mate, but it did not work out.
That is truely a sad story.
Does that mean that species is extinct?

I am fascinated how long they live (some 150 years old).

Truely a sad story.
One of a kind!

gdb

Those guys have always fascinated me ! How old ya figure he was ??

Systems

Lonesome George, the last survivor of the subspecies Chelonoidis abingdoni of the giant tortoises ("galapagos" in Spanish) that gave Ecuador's Galapagos Islands their name, died of old age after living more than a century, according to autopsy results released Tuesday.

[URL=" http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/06/26/autopsy-finds-tortoise-lonesome-george-died-old-age/#ixzz1z3HpsfAY"] http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/06/26/autopsy-finds-tortoise-lonesome-george-died-old-age/#ixzz1z3HpsfAY[/URL]

RIP George!

shack

Infortunately George's kind isn't the first species that has disappeared thanks to the loss of habitat or the careless/thoughtless actions of humans...nor will he be the last.

tonyb

No doubt Shack, but every time a species goes extinct, we can't always lay it at the feet of careless humans. Nature has it's own way at times of filtering out species. Sometimes I ask myself when will it be our turn to get weeded out.

shack

tonyb wrote: »

No doubt Shack, but every time a species goes extinct, we can't always lay it at the feet of careless humans. Nature has it's own way at times of filtering out species. Sometimes I ask myself when will it be our turn to get weeded out.

If it happens due to the course of nature...so be it. But...name me a species that has gone extinct in the last 500 years where it's demise was not a direct or indirect result of human action. There may be a some...but they are few and far between. Compare that to the hundreds (or more) no longer with us due to their inability to adapt to us or escape from us.

Systems

Can you imagine the stories he could tell?

DMara

shack wrote: »

If it happens due to the course of nature...so be it. But...name me a species that has gone extinct in the last 500 years where it's demise was not a direct or indirect result of human action. There may be a some...but they are few and far between. Compare that to the hundreds (or more) no longer with us due to their inability to adapt to us or escape from us.

Easy to say, but of course any activity on this earth has to relate to human action, either directly or indirectly, because we live here Each and every year we found species we didn't even know they existed, so I'm pretty damn sure some of those species went extinct without us knowing. And it's damn natural to me. I mean, what do you expect? Didn't you know that the average life time of a human beings was just 30 years about a century and a half ago? We want better living conditions in order for us to live longer, well, guess what, there's a trade off. Other species will die for that to happen. Feeding 1 billion people on this earth may be easy, but over 7 billion and counting exponentially is not. Sooner or later we will either find some other planets to move some of us to or we will extinct, just like any other species. And I think it's pretty natural.

tonyb

shack wrote: »

If it happens due to the course of nature...so be it. Compare that to the hundreds (or more) no longer with us due to their inability to adapt to us or escape from us.

Yep, kinda it in a nutshell. We just happen to be at the top of the food chain.... at the moment.

Animals went extinct before humans were around too.....correct ? The planet has a way of selectivly getting rid of species, including us. Think of all the new diseases that popped up along with population explosions. Thinning the herd so that the stronger species survive.....thats just nature. Don't get me wrong, I know what your saying about mans ability to be an **** and disregard animal species in their quest for greed and profit, I'm with ya there bro.

The species we call humans, has a shelf life just like other animal species. The thing that seperates us though is we have the ability to get off this planet to secure the survival of our species. To me anyway, thats where our research and money should be going into.

Man has long been at the top of the food chain, so long that he can't imagine himself as anything but. Nature may look at us as a tough, hard to get rid of, disease. It's only evitable that at some point nature will make a correction.