June 25th

He watched them all go

dragged on deck cruelly ridden

while the piper played

 

their slow hearts unused

to the wanton weight of men

stealing ancient breath

 

It made me so sad to read about the death of Lonesome George, the last tortoise of his sub-species. His death confirms the extinction of the Galapagos La Pinta Giant Tortoise (Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni).

A combination of hunting (not that they’d have been much of a match for a foraging seaman coming ashore to grab them) and the introduction of goats to La Pinta meant George was the last of his kind, hence his evocative and sad name.

Despite attempts to get him to breed with females from other sub species, it never happened for him. He was around 100 years old.

Whenever I think of giant tortoises, I always think of a book I read Selkirk’s Island by Diana Souhami. Alexander Selkirk was the real life castaway who Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe was based on.

Part of the book really stuck with me, it struck me at the depths of cruelty people can inflict. When giant tortoises were gathered in the galapagos by sailors (for food), to pass the time, the sailors used to ride them and race them whilst playing music. So they weren’t just food, they were used as entertainment prior to the time they were deemed ready to eat. It really hit me and depressed me, that these poor ancient beasts were so cruelly traumatised and tortured prior to their death. Their slow beating hearts punished to beat so fast. The terror they must have felt.

I was going to write a bit about Charles Darwin, and the elegance of his theory of natural selection, his work informed by his discoveries in the Galapagos, the subtle differences between similar species on different islands, about adaptation to natural surroundings, but the thought of those poor gentle tortoises has sapped the energy from me.

So anyway, two Haiku’s on the same subject today.

Lonesome George, pic from the Guardian