How The California Gold Rush Gave Us Lonesome George

Galápagos giant tortoises once numbered in the hundreds of thousands, with at least thirteen species. But now some of those species are gone forever and the same forces that doomed those tortoises might have ended up helping save others. Support the show by getting an Endling pin: https://complexly.store/products/endl... Endlings portrait illustrations are by Zoe Keller. You can find out more about her and her work here: https://www.zoekeller.com/ Galápagos Conservancy: https://www.galapagos.org/ San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance: https://sandiegozoowildlifealliance.org/ Quasar Expeditions: https://www.quasarex.com/galapagos/an... Thumbnail image by Galápagos Conservancy Follow us on socials: Instagram:   / bizarrebeastsshow   Facebook:   / bizarrebeastsshow   Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/bizarrebeast... #BizarreBeasts #endlings #tortoise ----- Sources: Bush, M. B., Conrad, S., Restrepo, A., Thompson, D. M., Lofverstrom, M., & Conroy, J. L. (2022). Human-induced ecological cascades: extinction, restoration, and rewilding in the Galápagos highlands. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(24), e2203752119. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas... Caccone, A., Gentile, G., Gibbs, J. P., Fritts, T. H., Snell, H. L., Betts, J., & Powell, J. R. (2002). Phylogeography and history of giant Galápagos tortoises. Evolution, 56(10), 2052-2066. https://iucn-tftsg.org/wp-content/upl... Conrad, Cyler, and Allen Pastron. "Galapagos tortoises and sea turtles in gold rush-era California." California History 91, no. 2 (2014): 20-39. https://georgehbalazs.com/wp-content/... Conrad, C., & Gibbs, J. P. (2021). The era of exploitation: 1535–1959. In Galapagos giant tortoises (pp. 63-81). Academic Press. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aZS-... Conrad, Cyler, Kenneth W. Gobalet, Kale Bruner, and Allen G. Pastron. "Hide, tallow and terrapin: Gold rush-era zooarchaeology at Thompson’s cove (CA-SFR-186H), San Francisco, California." International Journal of Historical Archaeology 19, no. 3 (2015): 502-551. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-817... Jensen, E. L., Gaughran, S. J., Fusco, N. A., Poulakakis, N., Tapia, W., Sevilla, C., ... & Caccone, A. (2022). The Galapagos giant tortoise Chelonoidis phantasticus is not extinct. Communications biology, 5(1), 546. https://www.nature.com/articles/s4200... Miller, J. M., Quinzin, M. C., Poulakakis, N., Gibbs, J. P., Beheregaray, L. B., Garrick, R. C., ... & Caccone, A. (2017). Identification of genetically important individuals of the rediscovered Floreana Galápagos Giant Tortoise (Chelonoidis elephantopus) provides founders for species restoration program. Scientific reports, 7(1), 11471. https://www.nature.com/articles/s4159... Poulakakis, N., Miller, J. M., Jensen, E. L., Beheregaray, L. B., Russello, M. A., Glaberman, S., ... & Caccone, A. (2020). Colonization history of Galapagos giant tortoises: Insights from mitogenomes support the progression rule. Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research, 58(4), 1262-1275. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1... ------ Images: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w...