Lonesome George was a giant tortoise found in the Galapagos
and he was the last known member
of the giant tortoises that were from the Pinta Island.
Pinta Island is one of the islands in the Galapagos archipelago.
On those islands, each Island typically has its own species of giant tortoise.
And sadly, George was the very last one. He was identified and brought
to the Charles Darwin Research Station in the 1970s.
But since that time we haven't found any other living tortoises on Pinta Island.
Lonesome George got his name from the fact that he is lonesome.
The hope was originally that we might find a female for him and be able to preserve
the species through reproducing in captivity, but sadly George has been lonesome ever since he was first discovered.
He died in June 2012. We're not sure how old he was
Tortoises grow very slowly and can live for a very long time,
but he was estimated to be probably over 100 years old.
The Galapagos National Park Service and the Galapagos Conservancy
selected the American Museum of Natural History
to create a taxidermy mount for Lonesome George.
George traveled from the Galapagos
new New York, but finally when the case arrived at the American Museum,
it was very exciting actually prising off the wooden crate lid.
At that time we gave a preliminary assessment.
He was still cold, still frozen, which was great news,
arrived in wonderful shape, and then we had to quickly
get him wrapped up again and then into our walk-in freezer.
so he would then be stabilized.
Lonesome George has been named a cultural patrimony for the country of Ecuador,
so he belongs to the people, the country of Ecuador.
Our involvement in the Lonesome George project, in this whole process,
really makes a lot of sense, because we do have a time-honored expertise
in the development of exhibits
that depict or reproduce not only specimens are animals but also
scenes from the natural world. Our dioramas of North American habitats
and African habitats and other areas of the world
are world famous and represent the sort of acme
of taxidermy and quality and reproduction.
So I think we bring that quality to Lonesome George.
The pose for Lonesome George maybe a bit more difficult to identify than you might think.
You might think think, normally a tortoise is either
asleep in its shell or it's sort of walking around, but in fact tortoises have got all sorts of
different postures that they can take up.
And in the case of Lonesome George, he had this wonderful beautiful long neck,
and relatively long limbs,
and this unusual-shaped shell which is called a Saddleback shell,
which allows the neck to actually extend higher,
which some people have suggested in past
might even help tortoises graze at higher level.
We have to do the entire length of the shell from the top all the way down to the very end.
We really wanted to have a pose that would sort of
capture George in an animated, moving posture.
And by actually also having his head up nice and high,
it sort of demonstrates the reach that he could achieve his neck.
If you look at the the photographs George when he's in these types of postures,
he looks absolutely fantastic.
You know, this big tortoise strutting around, very proud, and, you know, a magnificent animal.
So that's really what we wanted to capture in the pose.
What we're actually doing right now is starting to get
the posture in its final position where we're actually
setting out the limbs and the shell to make sure that we have
good reference photographs and also taking some casts at this stage so that
they can be used for future reference.
Once the taxidermy is completed we're delighted to say we will be able to
exhibit Lonesome George for a period of time before he returns to the Galapagos.
There will be an exhibit of Lonesome George,
and also a reflection on the whole issue of biodiversity
and also the question about why the Galapagos are such an important place.
It's an iconic place for the study of evolution
place for the studying the evolution
because, of course, Charles Darwin on his voyage of The Beagle,
made many in his important insights that led to his theory of evolution
while he was in the Galapagos.
Tortoises declined for a number of reasons. It seems incredible to think now,
but before refrigeration, when you had boats that would pass through the Galapagos Islands,
there was a time when it was a well-known
place where you'd stop off and you could buy giant tortoises or collect your own,
and it was a source of fresh meat that you could have have on board your ship for many months.
And so it had a very valuable use at that time,
and so many, many tortoises were collected and I suspect that Pinta Island
was probably subjected to a lot of collecting for that purpose.
It's humbling for us to be thinking about presiding over the loss of a species.
The last individual of an entire species is gone because of human activity.
And so we think that understanding the plight of the giant tortoises and understanding
what happened to the Pinta giant tortoises and then thinking about how that translates
into what we do take care of the other remaining giant tortoises
in the Galapagos and endangered species everywhere,
is a really important message for us,
And one that I think the individual called Lonesome George can really bring to the public.