Posts Tagged ‘Dr. Joe Flanagan’

Oct
22

Rhinos Return Series: Rhino’s Rescheduled

Posted by in African Forest,Endangered,Rhinos

A few more hurdles as the team scrambles to reschedule the rhino’s air transport!

When last I posted, it was about 4:30 AM, Africa time.  We were exhausted, disappointed and frustrated.  Even when the shipping containers finally arrived, they weren’t actually finished!  They only had a coat of primer on them and would need to be partially dismantled and have three coats of paint applied.  With the next possible flight only two days away, there really was no time to lose.

After a few hours of exhausted sleep, Louis, the translocation manager, mobilized his team to complete the containers while the Houston Zoo team headed into town to begin communication with Johannesburg and Houston about rescheduling our flight.  Planes large enough to carry three rhinos don’t exactly leave every few hours!  Our only windows of opportunity were Mondays or Wednesdays and after missing our Monday flight we were hoping to get on the Wednesday flight.

Translocation Manager Louis and Joe Kalla check out the not-quite-finished transport containers.

Unfortunately, our hopes of a Wednesday flight were soon dashed.  The planes were full.  While disappointed, we weren’t overly surprised by this news given the months of planning it took to get this project coordinated in the first place.  To add to the stress of the rhino move, we all began making calls home to spouses, pet sitters and friends who were expecting us.  There were kids that needed care, pet tortoises that needed to come inside before the evenings got too cool in Houston, weddings that would be missed…..our own logistics seemed as complicated as moving rhinos from Africa!

Eventually things looked good for the following Monday. We set a time line for painting the shipping containers, switching them with the training containers, loading rhinos and setting off  for Johannesburg the following Sunday evening.

But our planning wasn’t quite over yet.  In addition to the logistics of physically moving the rhinos, Dr. Joe had to go through all the permitting paperwork again and determine what needed to be redone.  Some permits are good for 30 days, while others only last a week, and still others need to be signed as the animals are loading.  Some of this paperwork needed to be completed by a veterinarian licensed in South Africa and some required the signature of the Mpumalanga state veterinarian. (Mpumalanga is the beautiful South African state where we were staying.) By this point the South African vets were on speed dial on our cell phone!

At last things were once again on track and we suddenly had a week in Africa on our hands.  Of course, if one has to be stuck somewhere, Africa is not a bad place.  What to do?  As fate would have it, a veterinarian that Joe K. and I used to work with at our former institution, and that Dr. Joe has known from many years of being in the zoo vet field was actually in Africa, working in Kruger National Park. Joe K. put in a call to Dr. Michelle and we were soon on our way to Kruger, only about an hours drive away.

We had many adventures in our short time at Kruger Park and saw evidence of poaching for ourselves, which is definitely a story for another blog.  It was good for us mentally to decompress for a day and we were starting to feel more relaxed and pragmatic about the rhino transport… Here’s a picture of the Houston Zoo Africa Team looking much happier!

HZI Africa Team: Dan Breton, Dr Joe Flanagan, Beth Schaefer and Joe Kalla

How short lived that was!  It may be no surprise to those of  you who have been following along with our story that fate was not quite finished with us yet.  We got a call from Houston that I truly thought was a joke at first.  Sharon Joseph, VP of Animal Operations, was calling to let us know that we actually weren’t going on the flight next Monday.   I had to hear it several times before I believed that she wasn’t having a bit of fun with us.  The flight from Johannesburg to Amsterdam had space available, but the connection from Amsterdam to Houston did not have cargo space available for our three rhinos.

This time, a deep breath wasn’t going to do it.  This latest disappointment called for drastic action.  We went for “Sundowners”* with Dr Michelle and the other Kruger veterinarians.

Dr Joe & Joe K enjoying Sundowners with Dr Michelle and the Kruger Park veterinarians.

Visitors at our Sundowner celebration

* Sundowners are cocktails and hoers d’ oeuvres in the bush, on the savanna or by a hippo pool, where wildlife can be seen up close and personal.  The rules in Kruger National Park are that you can’t get out of your car because of the danger of being charged by a hippo or eaten by a lion.  When it comes to Sundowners, however, the rules are somewhat flexible.  If you get out of your car and you get eaten by a lion, then the park has no responsibility.  It’s your own fault for getting out of your car in the first place.  This adds an element of danger and excitement to the Sundowner celebration.  Fortunately, we didn’t get eaten.

Editors note: When the Houston Zoo team set off on what we called an adventure, little did we know just how accurate that would be! Their misfortune has become a splendid story, as many of you have been telling us. If you can’t wait for what happens next, check back for Beth’s next blog post!

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May
27

Dr.Joe’s Giant Tortoise Adventure: Last Day on Pinta

Posted by in Animal Info,Birds,Conservation,Dr Joe's Giant Tortoise Adventure,Endangered,Reptiles,Tortoise,Uncategorized

May 19, Wednesday, Pinta Island 

This morning will be our last on Pinta. I was able to climb up to the tortoise area relatively early and  spent time enjoying the scenery, watching tortoises moving through the vegetation, eating, sniffing, and looking around. I also enjoyed watching the guardaparques work as they carried tortoises up the hill, passing the tortoises to the next team at each transition point. Generally, there was no evident loss of momentum anywhere along the route. I watched a few arrive, then followed a trail of a tortoise a few hundred meters up the hill. While watching her, I heard a lot of cheering and suddenly worried that I might be missing “the arrival” of the last tortoise. I hurried back, painfully beating through vegetation that had not been opened by a tortoise yet. I got back to find my fears were for naught.  There were still a few more tortoises to arrive. The smallest tortoise came up on the back of one of the crew members from the Sierra Negra. The captain was extremely gracious in allowing his crew to help with this project. Normally the vessels used here are worked by a crew that focus entirely on the duties of maintaining the vessel. While this crew left nothing to lack with respect to their ship duties, they were also so excited about the release that they did whatever they could to participate. It was one of the crew who was able to heft the smallest tortoise (20 kg, or 44 lbs) onto his shoulder and walk the entire 4 km himself! 

The Guards gather around the last tortoise, number 39

The next tortoise was number 39! He arrived and the entire string of guardaparques were there to meet him. A lot of cheers, back slapping, hand shaking, smiles, and laughter went on for quite some time. The tortoise, oblivious to the din, sat in the grass and started to eat within about 2 minutes of hitting the ground. We then all took photos to document this historic event, and began to work our way back to shore. Along the way down I enjoyed the beauty of the habitat. The mixture of ecosystems, plant communities, and diversity of wildlife along the way. Near shore, a Galapagos hawk nest was perched in a prickly pear tree. An adult peered over the side of the nest as if to say “stay back” and others were circling in the area. Doves flew by. This is an incredibly beautiful, peaceful place. 

A Galapagos hawk surveys the activites.

Back at the beach, the people who had started the tortoises on their ascent today had done a little beach clean up. Although the Galapagos are 600 miles from the nearest land, marine debris and trash regularly washes ashore. When in these remote areas, if possible, people working for the park will do what they can to de-litter all the accessible areas. It’s a wonderful and important service. 

The afternoon was restful. The students were getting their last direct contact that they would have with people for 10 weeks. While there’s a chance that they’ll get a mid-term visit to check supplies, there are no guarantees — only if time permits.  The sea lions came back and there seemed to be more of them.  After dinner, we said our good-bye’s to the students and they got into the panga, and were dropped on the beach.  The ship pulled anchor and we headed out of harbor.  As the ship went into motion, swallow tailed gulls started following along. This is the only nocturnal species of gull in the world, and 1 of 2 gull species endemic to Galapagos. They are very likely the most beautiful gull in the world.  They are easily seen in several of the tourist visiting sites, sometimes on nests with eggs or young.  It was a wonderful treat to get to see them fly alongside the boat. I finally decided to try to capture an image using my camera on an “open” setting with flash. It seems to have worked, but the white dot is not necessarily National Geographic quality! Sleeping was pretty easy that night. The boat in motion was more stable, and everyone was exhausted from all the work on Pinta. 

We pulled into port at 6:oo a.m. Thursday morning, right on schedule. 

That might be the final day on Pinta Island, but now that Dr. Flanagan is back in Santa Cruz, there’s much to do. Come back to read the next installment. 

Written by Dr. Joe Flanagan

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May
26

Dr. Joe on Pinta Island

Posted by in Animal Info,Birds,Conservation,Dr Joe's Giant Tortoise Adventure,Endangered,Horticulture,Reptiles,Tortoise

May 18, Tuesday, Pinta Island    

The Vermillion flycatcher that kept us company for all three days.

 The area on Pinta Island  is thick with native vegetation. I don’t know all the plants of Galapagos (though I think I know a few people who do), but I did not see a single plant that I recognized as introduced. Plants that are particularly problematic are guava, blackberry, quinine tree, and passionfruit vine. None of these were in evidence where I went. These plants compete with native plants, resulting in loss of natural food resources for the tortoise, finches, and other wildlife in the islands.    

Finches abound. I believe there are 9 kinds of Darwin’s finches found on Pinta. Again, I can’t identify them all with certainty, but can recognize significant differences between the birds sizes and beak shapes that distinguish them as different from each other. There are also Galapagos mockingbirds, Galapagos doves, and Galapagos hawks visible at almost all times. The doves are particularly beautiful and so tame that they almost didn’t get out of the way when I walked the trail. A particular treat was the Vermillion Flycatcher, pictured left, that met us at the beach when we arrived with the first tortoises. It’s the same species we have in Texas that I’ve seen as close to Houston as Brazos Bend State Park. That bird stayed around all 3 days we were on Pinta, making some of us suspect there must be a nesting female somewhere nearby.    

I will see my friend Dr. Sharon Deem next weekend. Sharon is a zoo veterinarian who works here for the St. Louis Zoo on avian health issues. She’s been on many of the islands looking at diseases present in the various bird populations, trying to figure out the natural history of those diseases, and the impacts these pathogens play in the biology of native (and introduced) bird species here. I will be pleased to report to her that there was no evidence of avian pox on any of the birds that I saw on Pinta. She asked me to keep an eye out for it. Pox is spread by mosquitoes and is found in the finches, doves, and mockingbirds on many of the islands. We know it has been here a long time, but spread may be getting worse due to the inadvertent introduction of disease spreading mosquitoes. The same problem (introduction of mosquitoes and exotic diseases of pox and malaria) has wiped out many of the endemic Hawaiian honeycreepers. We don’t want Galapagos to repeat our mistakes, and they don’t either.    

Each tortoise is carefully carried over the terrain to be released and roam free

Today I took my turn on the beach. I helped with the tortoises as they came off the panga, and with the process of securing them to carry them up the hill. It was of supreme importance that they were well protected. This team was lead by Don Fausto Llerena. Fausto has worked at the tortoise rearing center (now named for him) pretty much since its inception. He knows more about hatching eggs, rearing babies, feeding tortoises, creating nest sites, and producing healthy tortoises for release than anyone on the planet. He also has a lot of knowledge about how these animals live in the wild. He is a resource for all new employees, and for consulting veterinarians(me). With Fausto in charge of securing the tortoises to the branches, there was no doubt they’d make it up the hill safely.    

We finished early — the last tortoise having left the beach late morning –  so we went to help set up the tarp over at the cooking/kitchen area that the students will use in their camp. Camps here are set up is that sleeping tents are laid out where there’s level ground. The “kitchen” is placed a bit away from the tents and serves as a common area to eat, relax, and converse. Their chosen site has a beautiful lava wall that blocks the wind so the gas stove will be more efficient. There are prickly pear trees marking the 2 opposite ends, and the shade structure is big enough to cover food storage and still allow room for a small plastic patio table with chairs where the students can eat and work. The camp site looks out on the bay where our boat, the Sierra Negra, sits in harbor.    

We went aboard for lunch and sat and relaxed some through the afternoon. I snorkeled around the boat for a short while and watched the large school of mullet beneath the boat extending off into what appeared to be infinity. There were a few triggerfish in the area, but not a lot of diversity visible from my vantage point at the surface. After snorkeling, I sat on the deck and watched the sea. It wasn’t long before a pod of dolphins came right by the boat. They swam by, then minutes later returned from the other direction. I had to wonder if they weren’t “working” the huge school of mullet I’d just seen beneath the boat. They came back and forth maybe a dozen times, then a group of sea lions came and entertained us. They went from one side of the boat to the other and played with each other for hours. It finally got too dark to see much more, and was time for dinner anyway.    

Sleeping Monday and Tuesday nights was a little hard because at anchor, the Sierra Negra has a little bit more movement. I’m not at all inclined to sea sickness, but it actually was hard at times not to roll around in the boat when it shifted.    

The food on the boat was excellent. The cook and his assistants prepared 3 hot meals per day. There was always a healthy portion of rice, some type of meat (heavily favoring fish) and sometimes a vegetable. Fresh made juice and coffee were available at every meal. There is 1 simple rule however. After eating, everyone washes their own plate and silverware. I thought this is a pretty good deal!
Continue the journey with Dr. Joe tomorrow, as he and the crew say goodbye to the students who will stay on Pinta Island for 2.5 months to track the tortoise’s progress, and return to Santa Cruz.
Written by Joe Flanagan

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May
25

Dr. Joe’s Giant Tortoise Adventure: The Big Day

Posted by in Animal Info,Conservation,Dr Joe's Giant Tortoise Adventure,Endangered,Horticulture,Reptiles,Tortoise

After a 10 hour, overnight voyage on a small ship carrying over 30 people, Dr. Joe and his team finally reached the shores of Pinta Island to begin the big day.
   

May 17, Monday, Pinta Island   

Press cover this historic event.

We ate breakfast on the boat, then started to move the tortoises, and  a few passengers each trip, to the shore on a “panga” (dinghy).   Once there, we were met by a crowd of journalists here to document this historic event.   

After a few photos and interviews were given by key players in this project, the first tortoise was secured on a log and hefted by 2 “cargadores” (carriers) who started up the slope. The task of transporting the tortoises is done this way because there are vehicles or carts on the island and the terrain is the kind that would make it impossible to drive. Considering the weight of the tortoises, this is the most cautious and secure method of travel.  

The cargadores picked work partners and divided up the route into 11 equal segments.  Each pair of workers would carry every tortoise over their segment of the path.  This enabled each person to know their part of the trail very well, essential in the irregular and shifting substrate.  I did not even attempt to carry a tortoise as it is hard enough for me to walk without carrying my share of a 200+ lb tortoise!  The guardaparques are very familiar with the terrain in these islands and can walk up hills incredibly fast, usually without breaking a sweat.  My ego can take second seat to the safety and security of tortoises making it to their new, permanent home.   

A great Tortoise poses in the "meadow" before continuing his lunch.

I hiked up the trail in the morning, following in the footsteps of those carrying the tortoises.  I didn’t get passed, but then, I didn’t pass anyone either!  After about an hour and a half, I made it to the release site.  All the tortoises were placed in the same area of meadow — a mixture of grasses and broadleaf vegetation, herbaceous vines, shrubs, and small trees.  There were a few tree form prickly pear (opuntia spp.) dotting the area.  All these were growing through patches of soil separated by small sheets of lava and strewn with lava boulders.  This is slightly different than the grassy knoll dotted with daisies that I think of when I hear the word “meadow”, but might be as close as it comes on the island of Pinta!   

As tortoises arrive, they are carefully placed on the ground and at that point they’re free to do what they will.  Some started to explore.  Some just looked around, sniffing the air, checking out the people, and then started to investigate their surroundings.  Most started to eat within 5 minutes but all did within 20 minutes of arrival.  The 39 tortoises started moving through vegetation, creating a criss-cross patchwork of trails through the grasses.  It was easy to hear the sound of breaking branches, and see dried stumps of bushes and small trees tumble as the tortoises pushed their way through the area.  They were doing what they were brought there to do!    

Come back tomorrow to read what happens the following day on Dr. Joe’s Giant Tortoise Adventure!   

Written By Dr. Joe Flanagan

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May
24

Dr. Joe’s Giant Tortoise Adventure: Getting to Pinta

Posted by in Animal Info,Conservation,Dr Joe's Giant Tortoise Adventure,Endangered,Reptiles,Tortoise

We didn’t hear anything from Dr. Joe for a few days while he was on Pinta Island, far out of range of communication. But this morning we received several posts and pictures! If you haven’t been following Dr. Joe’s Giant Tortoise Adventure, it’s not too late to join him on the journey. Just scroll down to his first post starting on May 6th and come along!

May 16, Sunday

As mentioned in my last post, I got a bug that put me in bed for half of Thursday. But I was back at it Friday because there was much work to do. Saturday I finally broke down and took some antibiotics recommended to me by a local friend. I felt better within hours and was far more comfortable with the idea of getting on a boat with over 3 dozen other people for a 10 hour ride to Pinta Island.  Normally I wait these things out, but this time, couldn’t afford to not be 100% when we got there.

In the evening I felt well enough to have a good meal at my favorite restaurant in Galapagos — La Garrapata –  a name that means “tick” in Spanish (and one frequently leaves the place feeling as full as one!).  I decided to host the 4 students who would be eating rice and canned food for the next 10 weeks.  It was a great dinner.

Then this afternoon, Sunday, at 3:30 p.m., there was a press conference with the Minister of the Environment, the Director of the National Park, and Washington Tapia, who I’ve referred to here as Wacho.  They discussed all the work that has gone into the preparation of this tortoise release, and gave an outline of what was expected to happen on the trip.  The conference was short and spirits were high!

We then got back to work, taking tortoises from their last holding pens and transferring them onto a truck which drove them to the dock. There they were loaded onto the “Sierra Negra,” a patrol boat used by the National Park to monitor the Galapagos Marine Reserve on a regular basis.  We had just enough time for a quick pizza for dinner, and boarded the boat a little after 7:00 p.m.

There were 24 “guardaparques” (park wardens) aboard to do the work of transporting the tortoises up Pinta. In addition there were the 4 students, Linda Cayot, James Gibbs (the major professor on the project and a long time veteran of scientific studies in Galapagos and elsewhere), a number of reporters and assistants and the crew of the Sierra Negra aboard, so sleeping space was at a premium.  The top deck of the boat ended up with about a dozen people packed together like sardines for the 10 hour trip.  Needless to say, it was a bit difficult to sleep with the sound of the engine, the motion of the boat, and the firmness of the deck to contend with, but I finally got some rest.

Now, minimize this blog page on your computer for a minute, go to Google Earth, and head to the intersection of 90 degrees west and the Equator.  That should put you in the neighborhood of the Galapagos Islands.  Now look to the 3 small islands in the northern part of the archipelago.  The westernmost is Pinta.  Zoom in on Pinta and focus on the southern strip of the island.  On the eastern end you will see a few, white sand beaches nestled into the otherwise harsh, lava coastline.  We went ashore in this area.  If you draw a line from those beaches (they are just a few meters apart) to the N/NW for about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) you will find the location of the tortoise release.

Come back tomorrow to read Dr. Joe’s exciting description of the actual release!!!
Written by Dr. Joe Flanagan

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May
19

Dr. Joe’s Giant Tortoise Adventure: All Systems Go

Posted by in Animal Info,Dr Joe's Giant Tortoise Adventure,Endangered,Reptiles,Tortoise

May 14, Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos

Today is Friday.  I missed most of yesterday due to a severe case of food poisoning.  I had a light breakfast, then started having severe “symptoms.”  Then a bad fever put me in bed by 2:30 PM.  I’m just now catching up on writing about what’s happened since my last post.

I’m very fortunate to have a friend who works in the Charles Darwin Foundation here in Galapagos.  She was able to provide me access to the lab space which was not currently being used, and which was air conditioned — a real plus when trying to operate sensitive equipment!

Tuesday night I worked until about 10:30 PM in the lab trying to get the 25 samples we collected that day processed.  Blood is very fragile, and results are less trustworthy the longer it’s been since the sample is collected.  I haven’t put all the data into a spreadsheet yet, but the numbers that were generated seem to fall in line with normal values from other species.

Dr. Joe processes tortoise blood samples on site.

On Wednesday I did fecal examinations for parasites.  Only a few animals showed any signs of parasites in their stool, and of those the parasites were small in number.  I expect the de-worming we administered when we processed the animals on Monday and Tuesday worked.  I did a little bit of cleaning up and ended the day at 6:30 PM.

Today I started out slowly, as I’m still on the road to recovery from my short-term illness… but, it was the day to get all our equipment into quarantine.  Any equipment or supplies going to the outer, unpopulated islands is inspected for seeds and insects, sprayed with insecticide, and the placed into a freezer for 3 days to kill off anything that may have been missed.  The goal is to avoid spreading any plant or animal life from one island to the next, so that each island stays as close to its pristine state as possible.  Everything that goes to the island goes through the quarantine process.  All the food that the students will use in the next 2.5 months, all camping gear, all clothes, everything.

After getting our gear into quarantine, we had a meeting in the Park conference room.  All the guardaparques (or, park rangers) who will be going were there to get a briefing on the project.  This is project is a big one, so people were brought in from offices on all the other populated islands (Floreana, San Cristobal, Isabela) as well as from here on Santa Cruz Island.

When we arrive on Pinta Island, it will be very exciting.  It’ ll have been a long, winding road to get there…  Flying  five + hours from Houston to get to Quito, Ecuador by direct flight, where I stayed overnight and in the morning took a two hour Flight to Baltra Island, after which I took a bus to a ferry to a bus to a truck to the Galapogos National Park offices here in Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos.  Now Sunday night at 6 we leave for Pinta Island by boat.  We should arrive just before 6 AM on Monday morning.  There are no flights, no roads, no nothing on Pinta, not even tortoises…. Yet!

While on Pinta Island, Dr. Joe will have very limited communication with the outside world, so we probably won’t get an update until he returns to Santa Cruz.  Please check back in a few days to continue this journey with him!

Written by Dr. Joe Flannagan

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May
16

Dr. Joe’s Giant Tortoise Adventure Ramps Up

Posted by in Animal Info,Conservation,Dr Joe's Giant Tortoise Adventure,Endangered,Reptiles,Tortoise

The fifth installment from our Dr. Joe Flanagan.  If you haven’t been reading along, just scroll down to his first post on May 6.

May 13, Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos

I am the luckiest guy in the world!  I’ve spent the last 2 days working with 39 tortoises and have shared my time with some very professional students who will be following these animals for the next 2.5 months using radio tracking.  I’ll be able to “watch” three of the animals  from home since they’ll be wearing satellite tags. The tags are actually transmitters, whose signal is picked up by satellites and the information on their location is sent to a database where it is downloaded for access.

An example of a satellite tag

Below is the process I’ve gone through for the last 2 days:

* Each tortoise is brought from isolation pen, where all 39 animals have been kept since their sterilization surgery last November.

* The tortoise is weighed, measured, and identity is confirmed through markings and a “PIT” (passive induced transponder) tag.

* I collect a blood sample for later analysis.  My favorite site for blood collection is the jugular vein.  This is generally easy to utilize if the animal is held by someone strong enough while extracting the animal’s head from the shell, and keep it still while I locate the nice vein on either side of the neck.  I don’t get the sample on the first try every time, but most of the time I do.  Today there was one animal that WOULD NOT COOPERATE!!  So I went to my second favorite site, which is the wrist area.  That’s where it’s easiest to get blood from most animals, but it doesn’t flow as well, and can be contaminated with lymph fluid, making it less helpful in diagnosing disease.  Once captured, the blood goes into storage tubes and into an ice chest to keep it cool until analyzed.

* I administer a de-wormer to assure they aren’t harboring any “animals” we don’t want to introduce to Pinta.  This involves drawing up the correct amount of medicine for the tortoise, then teasing the blunt tipped metal tube through the front of the tortoises’  lips and advancing it into the back of their throat to administer the liquid slowly as they swallow.  This goes well most of the time, but some seem to know how to store it in the back of their throats and can then spew it out when I’ve finished!

Administering critical de-worming medicine.

* I collect a fecal sample (if they are so generous) to assess the success of our treatment.

* The tortoise is then cleaned and prepared to have one of 3 different types of electronic tags attached.  The students here with me are using an epoxy that’s been used before on turtles and tortoises.  It starts out like putty, but becomes as hard as rock and adheres well to the tortoise’s shells.  The whole process, other than the drying of the epoxy, takes about 30 minutes per animal.

Students working with Dr. Joe apply a tracking device to the tortoise's shell with epoxy.

* The tortoises then go into a holding pen where they’re fed and watered before they are carefully loaded onto ship this coming Sunday to take the voyage to Pinta Island.

I’m analyzing the blood samples with equipment loaned to the project by Abaxis. They have a pretty neat, small, and easy-to-operate machine that gives me information on the tortoise’s organ functions,  including its’ kidney, liver, muscle, and circulatory system.  The machine takes only a very small amount of blood and gives me a panel of information.  I analyze their blood for 2 reasons:  1) we want to see that the animals are healthy before they’re released, and  2) we want to see a set of data that we can use to create normal reference ranges for blood values for this species.  The numbers will be particularly important since these animals are kept within the natural range of the species.

As we work, it’s fun to look around at the coastal, arid zone of Santa Cruz Island, where the Charles Darwin Research Station and the Galapagos National Park offices are located.  There’s a cactus forest in this area, with prickly pear and organ pipe like cactus that tower up to 30′ tall or more!  There are also acacia, palo verde (just like in Texas) and many other species of trees and shrubs that remind me of home.  But it is all growing in a rough, rocky, lava covered substrate that heaves and rolls from the coast to the top peak of this island.  The lava is rough and the vegetation is thick.

A Darwin finch

I’m also enjoying watching the “Darwin’s Finches”, mockingbirds, and warblers that are very abundant.  One species, the ani (or garrapatero in Spanish), is also abundant, but unfortunately was introduced many years ago by farmers.  The name “garrapatero” means “tick eater”, so the farmers were hoping to relieve their cattle of these blood sucking parasites.  The plan didn’t work, and these birds now compete with native birds, and even can eat the young of some of the other species of birds here.  Additionally, we know they carry diseases like parasites and pox virus which are contagious to the other birds.

I hope to get done with the blood samples by 10 or 10:15 tonight.  It has been a long day and I will probably miss supper.  It will all be worth it for the important information we will be learning about these magnificent tortoises!

Written By Dr. Joe Flanagan

Thank you to eeliad.com for satellite tag photo, and to Blackwellpublishing.com for the picture of the Darwin finch.

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May
14

Dr. Joe’ Giant Tortoise Adventure: Preparations

Posted by in Animal Info,Dr Joe's Giant Tortoise Adventure,Endangered,Reptiles,Tortoise

May 10th, Santa Cruz, Galapagos

Here is a photo of “Lonesome George”, the last surviving tortoise from the Island of Pinta in Galapagos.  Handsome fella isn’t he?

Lonesome George

His island was stripped of tortoises by pirates and whalers in the 17th and 18th centuries.  This species of Galapagos tortoise was thought to be extinct until George was found in 1971.  He was transferred to the Charles Darwin Station in 1972 and is now housed with 2 female tortoises from another island in hopes that he might reproduce.  Despite many attempts, there have been no fertile eggs, and the hope of finding a female tortoise from the island of Pinta anywhere else in the world, including zoos and private collections, is very slim.

Now, the tortoises we release there next week will make a great contribution to the habitat by doing the job of a large herbivore in the ecosystem: eating vegetation, disturbing the soil, spreading seeds, and recycling nutrients.  Again, they are all sterilized to prevent breeding. Why is that important?  We don’t want these tortoises to reproduce on Pinta because we still hope that some day a pure strain of tortoises can be released there to re-populate the habitat with the most appropriate inhabitants.  If we later introduce fertile animals, we don’t want them to interbreed with the hybrid tortoises.  So for now, we have to be confident that none of the animals we transfer to Pinta at this time can breed.

This weekend we’ve spent time getting ready for our stay on Pinta Island, gathering supplies and making plans. There’s also a team of 4 biologists who’ll be staying on Pinta for 10 weeks.  Among their preparations is food shopping.  All team provisions – food, water, sundries — will be dropped off there next week, and they need to be thorough, as no additional provisions will be available to them once they land on the island!

Tomorrow morning we will start processing tortoises.  They’ll get a physical exam and a dose of de-worming agent. We’ll also collect blood to look at organ function. Finally, they’ll be given one of three different types of tracking devices in order to follow their movements through the habitat on Pinta.  I’ll write more about all that in detail tomorrow.

Written by Joe Flanagan

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May
12

Dr. Joe’s Giant Tortoise Adventure Begins

Posted by in Conservation,Dr Joe's Giant Tortoise Adventure,Endangered,Reptiles,Tortoise

Dr. Joe set off on Friday, flying over 5 hours with all kinds of equipment to Ecuador, where he and a special team embark on their mission: to release giant tortoises on Pinta Island. His trip is just beginning, so if you haven’t read the first two installments, please CLICK HERE and HERE to read more.

May 8, Saturday morning,  Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos, after a good night sleep

Getting started: All the equipment came in earlier this week from Abaxis to do blood chemistry analyses.  On Thursday, the Zoo’s technicians helped walk me through the operations of the lab equipment.  With their help I finished packing, using clothes to pad the equipment in the hard case luggage to assure it arrived safely.  Unfortunately I’d packed too much stuff, so I jettisoned the lower priority items to get the 2 cases down to 50 lbs. each.  I had no trouble getting through the airport, but had to pay for the extra bag.

Though our flight was delayed a few minutes, we made quick time in to Quito, the capital city of Ecuador.  The 2 movies on the plane were unspectacular:  “When in Rome” and “Have You Heard about the Morgans.”  Food choices were a cheeseburger or a chicken fajita wrap.  I took the wrap and didn’t choke on it.

As luck would have it, my case with all the equipment was the very last box off the plane, so I left the airport about as late as humanly possible!  I got a cab to Hotel Akros and was in the room by 12:15 AM.  Fortunately I was able to leave the reagents needed for blood analysis in the hotel’s refrigerator for the night.  If they get warm before needed, they can fail, wasting the sample and the time it took to run it.  So keeping them cool was a big priority during the trip from Houston to the apartment here at the Galapagos National Park facilities.

I met Linda Cayot for breakfast at 6:oo AM so we could get to the airport in time for our 8:30 flight.  Linda works for Galapagos Conservancy, an NGO that supports science and restoration of Galapagos.  She lived and worked here for 13 years, first as a student studying the ecology of giant tortoises, then ultimately as head of Herpetology for the Charles Darwin Research Station.  She knows Galapagos, and she knows tortoises.

Although we had tickets for the same flight number, her departure was noted at 8:45 AM and mine said 8:30 AM (the plane indeed left at 8:30)!   I was on the left of the cabin and was able to see three fine, snow covered peaks of the Andes Mountains protruding through the clouds as we descended into Guayaquil, Ecuador.  Absolutely beautiful!  After taking on a few passengers, and refueling, we took off for the airport on Baltra Island in Galapagos.

A map of the Galapogos Islands so you can see where we are, have been and are going!

Linda and I were joined before we left in Quito by Francisco — one of the team that will stay on Pinta for 10 weeks.  Once we got to Baltra, the three of us were joined by Mario from the National Park, who got us and our luggage to the ferry at the Canal de Itabaca.  We landed on Santa Cruz, took a truck over to the apartment in the facilities of the National Park, and unloaded. By then we were hungry so we went to lunch at “La Tintorera” where we were in the position to watch everybody on the street walking by.  The strategy worked, as by the time we finished our $4 plate lunch, the entire Pinta team walked by!

We had a meeting in the afternoon with Wacho, and went out to see the tortoises, our work space, and finally,  the area where the tortoises would stay for their last week in captivity.  The pens are relatively small, but will be easy to keep clean of any seed or foreign material that we want to keep from moving out to Pinta with the animals.  It’s imperative that we not introduce anything but tortoises when we go to this remote island.

In the evening we ate at the “kioskos” — a street that’s essentially closed off, with tables set in front of family owned small restaurants serving decent meals at decent prices.  Then we returned our rooms.  I was in bed by 9:00 and fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.  Although it was warm and humid, I didn’t wake up until almost six in the morning!

Join Dr. Joe right here again tomorrow to see what he and the conservation crew did next!

Written by Dr. Joe Flanagan

Our thanks to Planetware.com for use of the map illustration

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May
10

Dr. Joe’s Giant Tortoise Adventure

Posted by in Conservation,Dr Joe's Giant Tortoise Adventure,Reptiles,Tortoise

As you might have read a few days ago, the Houston Zoo’s  Dr. Joe Flanagan has left for the Galapagos — specifically Pinta Island — to release 39 hybrid (but sterilized) Galapagos giant tortoises there. If you missed it, you can CLICK HERE to read all about it in the first of what will be many posts, sent from the  field over the next several weeks.  Here, we learn more about his mission and the giant tortoises.

Hybrid tortoises are the offspring of animals that were brought to the Charles Darwin Research Station (located in Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos) back in the early 1960s. At that time, it was unknown which island the individual tortoises had come from as they were  formerly pets that came to them from many places throughout Ecuador.  When eggs were laid, they were hatched and reared in order to develop the needed skills in tortoise husbandry that the CDRS and Galapagos National Park (GNP) would use in restoring tortoise populations on other islands.  Breeding in this group was halted in the mid 1970s, but the CDRS and GNP were left with a fair number of large animals that would need to be fed and cared for over the next 100 years!

A man named Wacho Tapia was working on an idea that would help restore Pinta Island’s habitat, and at the same time, reduce the amount of resources they had to invest in caring for those long-living giant tortoises.  In November 2008, Wacho asked me, “Is it possible to sterilize giant tortoises?”   The answer was yes.  So last fall, I went to Galapagos with 2 great friends, and outstanding reptile surgeons, Steve Divers (University of Georgia), and Sam Rivera (Zoo Atlanta) to perform the surgeries to sterilize these 39 animals.  Steve brought along a resident, Emi Knafo, and vet student Jason Norman to help with the procedures and to take advantage of this unique learning opportunity.  We did all the surgeries in a busy week of learning and fun, staying busy with the tortoises from dawn til dusk. In the evenings we worked on our plans for the following days.  As a group, we learned a lot from each other and from the project that was beginning to evolve.

We don’t want these tortoises to reproduce on Pinta because we still hope that some day a pure strain of tortoises can be released there to re-populate the habitat with the most appropriate inhabitants.  If we later introduce fertile animals, we don’t want them to interbreed with the hybrid tortoises.  So, now we have to be confident that none of the animals we transfer to Pinta at this time can breed.  We also have to assure that they are not carrying any seed from plants that don’t belong on Pinta, and that they are free of parasites that wouldn’t be native to Pinta.  For the past 2 months, “our” tortoises have been held in isolation pens and fed a diet lacking seeds.  Their pens have been cleaned regularly to prevent the ingestion of any of the native vegetation from Santa Cruz Island.  We’ve also administered antiparasitic medication to each animal twice.  When I go down there next week, each animal will get an additional treatment to assure they are parasite free. and we can move on to the next step in the project to release them on Pinta Island.
Please check back tomorrow for another installment from Dr. Joe’s Giant Tortoise Adventure!

Written by Dr. Joe Flanagan

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