Who are Sebastian and Carolina, why do they have T shirts, and why are they on sale here at the Houston Zoo?
1.Who are Sebastian and Carolina?
Sebastian and Carolina are wild giant tortoises who live on the Island of Santa Cruz in the heart of the Galapagos Archipelago. Under the auspices of the Galapagos Tortoise Programme, Sebastian and Carolina are participants in a study of tortoise migration, along with another 44 tortoises spread over three different islands: Santa Cruz, Isabela, and Española. The study is coordinated by the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany, in strong collaboration with the Galapagos National Park Service and the Charles Darwin Foundation.
Satellite tag
Sebastian and Carolina were fitted with Global Positioning System (GPS) telemetry tags in May 2009, and we have been following their movements ever since. When we found the tortoises they did not have names of course, but it quickly because obvious what they should be called because a recently married Ecuadorian couple, Sebastian Cruz and Carolina Proaño, who are conducting sea bird research on Galapagos assisted in the tagging operation. Since the tortoises were found together after what must have been a night of passionate romance (judging by the amount of mud covering Carolina’s shell), we felt there was only one choice for their names, so Sebastian and Carolina they became.
Sebastian has his own Facebook page (Sebastian Keynes), and is always delighted to make new friends.
2. Why do they have T shirts?
The Galapagos Tortoise Programme seeks not only to do cutting edge ecological research, but also to do meaningful conservation. One way in which we attempt to do this is through education. On Galapagos, we are working with the Scalesia Foundation to develop a tortoise-based conservation education programme in the Tomas de Berlanga school, and hopefully others. We developed a highly productive collaboration with the Lonesome George & Company toward this effort. Lonesome George & Co. manufacture and distribute the special edition “Sebastian” and “Carolina” line of T shirts, which are sold in the company’s stores and online. Half of the post production revenues go to funding our education programme. The hope is that T shirt buyers will look good in their T shirts, support real conservation, and as Lonesome George & Company say “Show you care with the clothes you wear”.
Charles Darwin’s Great great grandson(left) and the human Sebastian (right) sporting their T shirts in the Lonesome George & Co. store in Galapagos
3. Why are Sebastian and Carolina T shirts on sale in the Houston Zoo?
The Houston Zoo is not only committed to conservation and environmental education, so when we approached them to ask for help with our conservation education project on Galapagos, they were all ears. The Houston Zoo education department offered immediate assistance in developing training materials for school children, and we began discussing possibilities for initiating interactive education programmes between school pupils on Galapagos and in Houston. The Houston Zoo also offered to sell our T shirts in their gift store, and pledged that ALL proceeds from sales would go directly to the Galapagos Tortoise Programme. At the end of 2010, a team of educators from the Houston Zoo visited Galapagos to get a better feel for how they could engage with conservation education in the most productive way. We hope to roll out an exciting international education programme in this coming year.
Chronicles of Narnia star supports the Galapagos Tortoise Programme.
Skandar Keynes, who plays Edmund Pevensie, proudly wears his Sebastian T shirt to promote our activities. Skandar has Galapagos in his blood, since he is the Great great great grandson of Charles Darwin…It is odd indeed to think that Sebastian may well have been alive and well when Darwin was developing his theory of Natural Selection.
By Dr. Stephen Blake
In November 2009, a group of veterinarians including the Houston Zoo’s Director of Veterinary Services Dr. Joseph Flanagan, working with the Galapagos National Park (GNP), prepared 39 hybrid tortoises slated to be the pioneer group to initiate the return of tortoises to Pinta Island. Project Pinta is a multi-year project aimed at the restoration of the island following the successful eradication of goats on Pinta in 2003. While complete island restoration will require the eventual repopulation of Pinta with a reproductive tortoise population, scientists and managers are awaiting the final results from genetic analyses of a massive sampling of tortoises before making the final selection of which tortoises to use. To initiate the return of tortoises, critical ecosystem engineers during this important period of vegetative recovery, a special group of tortoises will be released onto Pinta. To ensure that this group of hybrid tortoises will not compromise any future efforts to reestablish a reproductive population, veterinarians sterilized them. 
