Thursday, February 12, 2015

Ode to Lonesome George & Darwin



I first remember hearing about Lonesome George during a talk being given by Jacques Cousteau at Hynes Auditorium in Boston when I was 12 years old. My brother Mike and I had taken the train in from Concord to hear him speak. We watched his TV specials religiously. It was also in 1974 the Cousteau Society was founded, as Mr. Cousteau wanted a platform to set up a foundation for saving the planet and its oceans.

During his speech that day he said many things that were prophetic; rising sea levels and acidity in the water would lead to massive die-offs of various species and to shrinking populations of sea life ~ from plants to animals, corals to plankton. He equated it to the Galapagos Island having their distinct creatures on land, as Darwin proved with the finches and tortoises, and that when humans started to go there in large numbers it upset the balance for the animals, both on land and in the sea. He discussed Lonesome George in detail (with special care, knowing many of us young ones might not know the difference between a sea turtle and a land tortoise). Cousteau said that Lonesome George been discovered 2 years earlier, they believed he was 60 years old, and that he was the last of his kind, since they previously had believed that his kind of tortoise (Chelonoidis abingdoni ~ from Isla Pinta) was thought to have been extinct. They'd last been seen them alive in 1906. I remember making a note to myself that I wanted to see Lonesome George before he died. 

As you've read in previous posts, I lived on a boat like Cousteau. While living on it, I learned to be a solid free diver (where I could dive deep,  and stay under water with a snorkel for many minutes at a time), as well as an accomplished Open Water Scuba diver. I've gone diving and snorkeling from Maine to Maui and, of course, in the crystal waters of the Caribbean. The only land tortoise I had the pleasure of meeting up close, where some on a tortoise rescue ranch in Sonoma, California. My friend, Susan McCarthy, was asked to come to the ranch to be interviewed for a book she co-wrote entitled, "When Elephants Weep", a wonderful book of deeply researched accounts of the emotional live  animals. I fondly remember feeding strawberries to a century old tortoise while Susan and Jeffery Masson were being interviewed by a major weekly network magazine. 

But it wasn't until the April of my 49th year that I had the privilege making my pilgrimage to the Galapagos. By that time Lonesome George was 102 years old. I was there on an educational tour with some colleagues and our students from LHS, plus one of my oldest friends, Jennie. To arrive on Isla Santa Cruz by plane, take a boat to a  bus and then, after checking into our hotel, be only a short walk from the Darwin Center was beyond bliss. To see a tortoise nursery, with samples of the tortoise from each of the islands, with each of their adapted traits particular to the foliage and food sources of each of those islands, was also thrilling. Our naturalist guide, Frank, was a wealth of knowledge about each of the individuals in the Darwin Center. 

As our tour wound farther up the path, I knew that soon I'd be seeing, with my own eyes, the Elder Statesmen himself: Lonesome George. Now you probably know that I'm a romantic with a vivid imagination. So since the age of 12, I'd planned out what I was going to do if and when I met LG. My plan crystalized in 1989 with the advent of the film, Field of Dreams. In it many magic and mystical events take place while exploring the themes of father-son relationships, baseball as a metaphor for life and taking chances vs having regrets. One of the vignettes is about a boy who gets called up to the big leagues, but then never gets to bat. Although he goes onto become a beloved rural family practice Doctor, he regrets never having the chance to get up to bat, setting his hands and feet, and then winking at the pitcher, like he knows something the pitcher doesn't. It's that scene that I told myself I'll live out with Lonesome George should I ever make it to the Galapagos Islands. And here I was years later and just yards away from achieving my dream. 

When we arrived at the pen where George was being held, he was anything but Lonesome. In fact, the Darwin Center had just given one last ditch effort of mating George to two different females with no luck. Just as he had with previous attempts years earlier, he rebuffed any and all female attention. He was however in good appetite and eating his meals every Monday, Wednesday and Friday like clock work. My students knew my plan and one of them, Dan Williams (aka Danimal) offered to snap a picture of me winking at George. That is the picture you see at the head of todays post. I remember the smell of the vegetation, the threat of tropical rain, the rapid beating of my heart, while experiencing a blissful contentment and calm simultaneously. A very fulfilling moment in my life. 

Lonesome George died 2 months later, June 2012. I was profoundly saddened by his death, but celebrant to have breathed the same air with him while he was still living. 

This year I was invited to a special grand opening of the exhibit of Lonesome George, taxidermied, by the Natural History museum in NYC. The mere idea of it broke my heart all over again. I want to remember him as I knew him in above. Not in stuffed, in a museum, in a glass box. 

I could go on and on about the other islands, critters above and below the sea (especially the young sea lion with whom I played "Simon Says" in 40 feet of water for a good 5 minutes), but again I must sleep. Today, on Darwin's 206 Birthday, I thought it'd be nice to pay tribute to the man who introduced Evolution to realm of man by studying the creatures of these glorious Islands, including the finches and tortoises.

So Good Night, Darwinists and Darwinistas, G'night!

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