A family trip to remote archipelago comes full circle with visit to Houston Zoo’s new...
A land iguana looks for a vegetarian lunch on North Seymour Island. These large lizards can weigh upwards of 30 pounds.A bright yellow land iguana inched its stocky legs along the beach, plopping down near a patch of leaves for an afternoon snack.
Sara and I landed in the Galápagos Islands that morning, and we’d already given our cameras a workout. We’d seen dozens of blue-footed boobies, the males showing off their turquoise feet to impress prospective mates. We’d watched horny frigatebirds inflate their throats into big red balloons, hoping to attract the attention of females flying high above. And we had to walk over a sea lion to get to our cruise ship.
in April. “Most of our guests will never have a chance to go to the Galápagos. But creating, in microcosm, that experience for people here and an awareness of the amazing animals who live there is part of our mission.” If Sara and I couldn’t make lifelong memories on a vacation like this, we might as well burn our passports.Sara didn’t need to say anything. Behind her snorkel mask, her eyes were as big as baseballs. She’d watched the whitetip reef shark swim 15 feet below her flippers before it decamped for deeper waters.
The Galápagos is famed for its abundance of marine life, a bragging right that has a lot to do with several major ocean currents converging at the volcanic archipelago. These currents and the nutrients they bring produce an ideal environment for biodiversity — an environment that’s particularly vulnerable to climate change and rising sea temperatures. Warmer water, for example, means less algae to munch on for marine iguanas, the only lizards that feast in the ocean.
On tiny Rabida Island, our guide led us across the red sand beach to a saltwater lagoon that recently regained its status as a popular hangout for flamingos, thanks to a program aimed at eradicating invasive rats.
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