Eco System, Galapagos: part 3 Discovery and modern life

Hello Everyone,

This post in our mini series is all about the discovery of the Galapagos. The islands are renowned for their evolution and extraordinary animals but how did we discover it and who?

The first recorded visit to the Galapagos was completely by chance in 1535, when Fray Tomas De Berlanger found this undiscovered land during a voyage to Peru. There may have been others who saw the islands but he was the first to step foot on them. De Berlanga was Spanish and returned to the Spanish Empire, describing the islands and the animals that inhabited them.

The group of islands was named "Insulae de los Galopegos" (Islands of the Tortoises) in an atlas published in 1570. The first full map of the islands was made in 1684 by Ambrose Cowley, who named the individual islands after some of his fellow pirates or after British royalty and high class citizens such as Lords. These names were used in the navigation charts of the islands that were prepared during the Beagle survey, and in Darwin's book The Voyage Of The Beagle. The newly independent Republic of Ecuador took the islands from Spanish ownership in 1832.

The first known full-time inhabitant was Patrick Watkins who became marooned on them and then started growing his own vegetables and even selling them to passing ships. Towards 1831, a small community had settled on the island and they cultivated the land and grew their crops.

However, this caused an invasion of foreign domestic species that caused a problem for some of the island's animals. the settlement didn't last long and several more attempts were made. The most successful was on San Christobal Island, which made it the most populated until 1960. This is why the capital is on San Christobal.

They were only made famous with Charles Darwin's voyage and now have roughly 25,000 inhabitants. They live in thriving communities that mainly live off of tourism and fishing. But these communities are careful to keep their lifestyles in harmony with the natural life and ecosystems that make these islands so unique. There are now several conservation areas and the Charles Darwin Research Center which serves as an important point of research for hundreds of scientists from around the world. Thanks to the work done to conserve the precious Galapagos ecosystems, the islands was officially classified as a Natural Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Thank you for reading this post all about the discovery and modern life on the Galapagos Islands!

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galápagos_Islands

Image: This image, owned by Elias Rovielo (on flickr.com), is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA.

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