Galapagos Islands
Galapagos is an archipelago located in the Pacific Ocean 1000 km from mainland Ecuador. The archipelago got its name in honor of the elephant turtles that live here in large quantities. Galapagos translated from Spanish means land turtles.
The Galapagos Islands includes 16 islands and a huge number of small ones, and the total area of the islands is 8010 km2. The Galapagos Islands in 1535 involuntarily opened priest Thomas de Berlang when he wanted to sail to Peru from Panama, but lost his course. The diversity of the flora and fauna of the islands is amazing, it is no coincidence that after research on the islands, young Charles Darwin received an impulse to write "The origin of species by natural selection".
Travelers to the islands are attracted by a huge number of rare plants and animals. There are also many diving enthusiasts who are not even afraid of cold currents, because of which the water temperature sometimes drops to 20 ° C, although the islands are almost at the equator. The abundance of sunlight leads to sunburn in a couple of hours, so you must use creams and hats. There are almost always large waves on the islands, so you can often see surfers here. Although the Galapagos are not very popular in this regard, many like that no one bothers them to ride the waves.
The first islands formed 10 million years ago during volcanic eruptions that still occur here. In 1959, the leadership of Ecuador in Galapagos created a national park covering the entire area of the islands. In 1978, the islands were listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, and in 1985 they made the World Biosphere Reserve guarding the islands and coastal waters of the archipelago. The total protected area is 70,000 km2 and in size yields only to the Great Barrier Reef.
Most of the Galapagos plants and animals are nowhere to be found, but they are threatened by imported species that displace and destroy indigenous plants and animals. Of the plants, avocados, citrus fruits, mites, hinn trees and guayava are considered the most harmful, which spread throughout the islands and replaced local plants and trees on most large islands. During colonization, livestock, birds, ants, rats, cats were brought to the islands. Rats eat defenseless little turtles, which is why they did not begin to bring offspring on the island of Pinson. Cats and dogs exterminate helpless local birds against them. Pigs, cows, goats absorb all the greens, at the same time trampling on the nests of birds. Since there are no predators in the Galapagos, the species brought very quickly breed. For example, in 1959, fishermen brought 2 goats and goats to the island of Pint, after 14 years their number reached more than 30,000 individuals.
Of the animals in the Galapagos Islands, elephant turtles, blue-footed boobies, penguins, flying cormorants, hemlock, sea iguanas, Galapagos kanyuki, sea lions and many other species are most interesting.
