The Galapagos
Radio Reporter 1: We're going to tell you a story.
Radio Reporter 2: A good story.
Radio Reporter 1: A story about an island.
Radio Reporter 2: An island in the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of kilometers from the South
America.
Radio Reporter 1: Famous Islands.
Radio Reporter 2: So sit back, pull up a chair, listen, and we hope... enjoy. Welcome to (Name of Radio Show)
(Theme Music)
Radio Reporter 1: Ok, a little context here. The Galapagos islands are a group of 19 large
islands and many smaller ones 300 kilometers off the coast of Ecuador. Most of
the islands are a national park, protected and all that, but there are a couple
towns where a few thousand people live.
Radio Reporter 2: When people think of the Galapagos they think pristine.
Radio Reporter 1: Natural.
Radio Reporter 2: Untouched by humans.
Radio Reporter 1: A paradise.
Radio Reporter 2: But mostly, people think of tortoises.
Radio Reporter 1: The land tortoises of the Galapagos are famous around the world. Tourists
come from all over to see them.
Radio Reporter 2: They're huge. Majestic. Elegant.
Radio Reporter 1: They can live to be over a hundred years old.
Radio Reporter 2: They look like something from another era, a prehistoric era.
Radio Reporter 1: They were a key to Charles Darwin developing his theory of evolution when
he landed on Galapagos in 1835.
Radio Reporter 2: Every island has tortoises. They all look sort of the same.
Radio Reporter 1: But with some small differences.
Radio Reporter 2: Maybe their shells are different, or their beaks, or their sleeping
patterns, or how they eat.
Radio Reporter 1: Darwin noticed that each tortoise is perfectly adapted to his
environment, and he thought that maybe, over time, animals could change to
better survive in the place they lived.
Radio Reporter 2: Darwin was proven right, and we know now that evolution is the key to
diversity of life on earth.
Radio Reporter 1: We also know that on each island in the Galapagos has a different species
of tortoise. All dogs are the same species. But dogs and foxes are a different
species. All the tortoises have changed so much that they are that different
from each other.
Radio Reporter 2: Darwin was floored. But he was right.
Radio Reporter 1: We have with us Helena Escobar, a biologist with the Galapagos
Conservation Initiative.
Helena: Hi,
glad to be here.
Radio Reporter 2: Welcome Helena.
Radio Reporter 1: Can you tell us about the problems on the island 20 years ago.
Helena: The
tortoises need water to survive. They find small pools to lay in, to drink, and
to cool down. The islands are covered in trees and plant. The islands are very
foggy. The fog drifts in from the sea, clings to the leaves of the plants, and
drips down to form large, shallow pools. The water for the pools doesn't come from
rain, it comes from the water dripping from plants.
Radio Reporter 2: Ok, I'm following so far.
Radio Reporter 1: Go on.
Helena: The
plants were disappearing. Some islands were almost barren of large leafed
plants.
Radio Reporter 1: Barren!
Helena: It was
a disaster. No plants meant no water.
The tortoises, some of them many decades old, were dying.
Radio Reporter 2: Dear God!
Helena: Tortoises
were dying all across the many islands.
Radio Reporter 2: Why? What happened to the plants?
Helena: Goats.
Radio Reporter 1: Goats?
Radio Reporter 2: Goats!
Helena: Goats.
Radio Reporter 1: Did You say goats.
Helena: I said
goats.
Radio Reporter 2: Wow. How?
Radio Reporter 1: This is Jose Pascal, a historian with the Ministry of Natural Resources.
Jose:Hello all.
Radio Reporter 1: Jose's going to continue the story for us.
Radio Reporter 2: So Jose, why were there goats all over the islands?
Jose:The goats
had been there for hundreds of years. Probably 500 years.
Radio Reporter 1: 500 years!
Jose:Some
people say the goats have been their so long that they're as much a part of the
island as the tortoises.
Radio Reporter 1: Yes.. but.
Helena: But
the tortoises have been there for millions of years.
Radio Reporter 2: Ok, so the goats are eating all the plants. And the tortoises are dying.
Jose:Correct.
Radio Reporter 1: So, how did the goats get there?
Radio Reporter 2: And is anything being done about them?
End of Part 1
The Galapagos Part II
Radio Reporter 2: Why? What happened to the plants?
Helena: Goats.
Radio Reporter 1: Goats?
Radio Reporter 2: Goats!
Helena: Goats.
Radio Reporter 1: Did You say goats.
Helena: I said
goats.
Radio Reporter 2: Wow. How?
Radio Reporter 1: This is Jose Pascal, a historian with the Ministry of Natural Resources.
Jose:Hello
all.
Radio Reporter 1: Jose's going to continue the story for us.
Radio Reporter 2: So Jose, why were there goats all over the islands?
Jose:The goats
had been there for hundreds of years. Probably 500 years.
Radio Reporter 1: 500 years!
Jose:Some people
say the goats have been their so long that they're as much a part of the island
as the tortoises.
Radio Reporter 1: Yes.. but.
Helena: But
the tortoises have been there for millions of years.
Radio Reporter 2: Ok, so the goats are eating all the plants. And the tortoises are dying.
Jose:Correct.
Radio Reporter 1: So, how did the goats get there?
Radio Reporter 2: And is anything being done about them?
Radio Reporter 1: Wait... wait, before we go any further, how many goats are we talking
about?
Jose:There
were well over a hundred thousand goats.
Radio Reporter 1: A hundred thousand goats!
Radio Reporter 2: That's a lot of goats.
Jose:It is a
lot of goats.
Radio Reporter 1: So, how did the goats get there?
Jose:Whalers.
Radio Reporter 2: Whalers?
Jose:And
pirates.
Radio Reporter 1: Pirates?
Radio Reporter 2: Pirates, like ar ar?
Jose:Whalers
and pirates. 500 years ago the seas were full of ships that hunted whales. They
hunted whales for food and for oil. We don't hunt whales anymore, but 500 years
ago people did. And there were pirate ships in the seas that would rob the
whaling ships.
Radio Reporter 1: Ok, but what about the goats?
Jose:Both
pirates and whalers need to eat. They would stop at the Galapagos, the only
islands for hundreds of miles. They would stop and the islands and they would
gather some fresh water and they would eat the seals and they would eat the
tortoises.
Radio Reporter 2: They would eat the tortoises!
Radio Reporter 1: Poor tortoises.
Jose:But over
the years, they would get tired of tortoise meat. They'd want something that
they were more familiar with, something like what they'd eat when they were at
home.
Radio Reporter 1: Goats!
Jose:Exactly.
Goats. The whalers brought the goats to the island. The goats learned to survive,
to eat the plants, and their population grow. Every few months a whaling ship
or a pirate ship would stop by, take a few goats, and head back out to sea. The
goat population grew and grew. This went of for hundreds of years. Long after
the pirates and whalers were no more, there were still goats.
Helena: Lots
of goats.
Radio Reporter 2: Wow.
Jose:By the
1970's the goat population was so large that they'd eaten all the plants. By
the 1990's the tortoises were severely threatened.
Helena: There
were no more water pools. No where for the tortoises to cool off, to drink. It
was a crisis.
Jose:And it
wasn't just the tortoises. It was peoples jobs too. Tour guides, boat drivers,
restaurants, hotels, all depend on tourism. And all the tourists were coming to
see the tortoises.
Radio Reporter 1: No tourists were coming to see the goats.
Helena: No
tourists were coming to see the goats.
Radio Reporter 2: So, what was done.
Jose:It took
eight years.
Helena: Eight
years of meetings with all sorts of experts and government officials.
Jose:Finally
it was decided that the goats had to go.
Radio Reporter 2: Like, be killed? All of them?
Jose:It was
the only way.
Helena: The
ideas were outrageous. Some suggested poisoning, some suggested having each
tourist take a goat home, and one scientist even suggested putting lions on the
islands.
Radio Reporter 1: Lions! So that the lions could eat the goats?
Jose:Yeah.
Radio Reporter 2: But wouldn't the lions eat the tortoises as well.
Jose:Yeah,
they'd probably eat the tourists too.
Helena: In the
end, it was decided that there was only one way.
Radio Reporter 1: I think I know what your going to say.
Jose:Rifles.
Radio Reporter 2: Ouch.
Radio Reporter 1: Poor goats.
Helena:
Shooting a hundred thousand goats isn't easy. It's a lot of goats.
Jose:The whole thing was run and organized by the National Park Service.
Helena: They had helicopters.
Jose:Four men in each helicopter. Two pilots and two hunters. They'd fly over
the goats, and then, just.. pow, pow, pow.
Radio Reporter 2: They'd just shoot the goats from the air!
Jose:It was the cheapest solution.
Helena: But there was a problem. The goats learned to fear the helicopters.
They'd hear the sound and run and hide in caves and under trees.
Jose:If that happened the hunters would have to drop down from ropes, go under
the trees, go into the caves, and you know... pow, pow.
Radio Reporter 1: Dear God.
Jose:Some goats learned to hide so well that they had to be tracker. Other goats
would be captured and radio collared. Those goats would be followed and would
lead hunters to the rest of the goats. Then all the goats, you know...
Radio Reporter 2: Yeah, pow, pow.
Jose:It took more that five years. By 2006 all the goats were gone.
Radio Reporter 1: And, you know, the tortoises... how are they.
Helena: Today, the Galapagos tortoises are doing very well. The plants and water
pools are back, the tortoises are back.
Radio Reporter 1: Is this a happy ending?
Radio Reporter 2: I don't know... Is this a happy ending.
Radio Reporter 1: Poor goats.
