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Posted on 01/10/2003 8:31:51 AM PST by winner45
ESPANOLA ISLAND, Ecuador (Reuters) - The squat, brown owl sits immobile under the lee of a lava rock and stares unblinkingly as a dozen camera-toting tourists scramble on a ridge in front to get a better view.
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"He'll take off soon," says naturalist Ramiro Tomala, squinting in the morning sunshine. "It's his hunting time."
A surprising assertion for visitors to Ecuador's Galapagos Islands (news - web sites) from North America, Europe and Asia -- as well as mainland Latin America -- where any self-respecting owl will only fly by night.
But the day-owl is only one of many quirks of nature on the volcanic outcrops straddling the Equator in the southern Pacific whose unique wildlife helped Charles Darwin more than 150 years ago shape the principle of evolution through natural selection that today is the bedrock of scientific thought on the origins of life.
Across the islands birds, reptiles and marine animals showing no fear of man parade within a hand's length as if to drive home the message that here, things are different.
On Genovesa, an overnight's cruise north from Espanola at the archipelago's most south-westerly point, blue-beaked booby birds miraculously wrap their bright red webbed feet around the branches of the scrub trees where they build their nests.
On other islands, their more conventional blue-footed cousins nest on the ground.
On Isabela, largest in the archipelago where man first made a recorded landing in 1535, grass-munching goats brought in by 19th century fishermen to provide fresh food on the hoof, have adapted their diet to include turtle eggs.
DRACULA FINCH
On Wolf to the northwest, a "Dracula" finch has emerged since Darwin in 1835 discovered 13 species of the bird, marked by varying beak shapes, during his five-week voyage around the islands on the British survey ship Beagle.
Abandoning the seed diet maintained by its cousins on other islands, the local ground finch now feeds on the blood of larger birds, pecking exposed skin at the base of their feathers with a sharp beak perfectly adapted for the purpose.
Herons and gulls hunt by day, right? Well, even on the Galapagos most do. But not all.
Varieties of both sea birds, adapting over generations to the heavy competition in the daylight struggle for existence, have evolved larger eyes and catch their fish by night.
"And where else," muses naturalist Tomala as at his feet a gaggle of scarlet-streaked marine iguanas snort out the salt they have swallowed with their water, "do you find lizards that swim in the sea?"
Tomala, a 22-year-old native of the islands some 625 miles west of the coast of Ecuador, is one of a team of enthusiastic guides from the Galapagos Natural Park Service who work from cruise ships plying the local waters.
Ranging from the 100-passenger luxury Galapagos Explorer II operated by the Guayaquil eco-tour company Canodros to small boats housing only a handful of tourists, these vessels have to observe strict ecological rules.
The towering Canodros ship, which offers gourmet cuisine as well as other amenities that would do credit to a transatlantic liner, is equipped, company General Manager Andre Barona says, "to make sure any environmental impact is minimal."
Still, in January 2001, a boat accidentally dumped some 180,000 gallons of fuel in the Galapagos' pristine ocean waters. The fuel was headed for island use as well as for one of Canodros' cruise ships, although the tour company stresses that an inquiry found it was in no way responsible.
Most animals were not immediately harmed by the spill, but a scientific study later showed 62 percent of iguanas on one affected island died within a year. The study highlighted concerns that the Ecuadorean government is too lax in controlling island development.
ALIEN SPECIES
Preventing contamination of the islands' ecosystem by "alien species" is the top concern for the government-funded park service as well as for the independent Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz island, which work in tandem.
The Galapagos, said a recent expert report, stands at a crossroads: Either strict quarantine and immigration measures are enforced or the islands go the way of many others around the world which are now little more than tourist playgrounds.
Until now, the record has been relatively good. Some 95 percent of the species found on the island by Darwin survive, in contrast to the ecological collapse on similar archipelagos -- like Hawaii -- once man took up residence.
Just 40 years ago, only around 2,000 people lived on the Galapagos, but with a surge in tourism in the late 1960s the population rose sharply as people fled persistent poverty in mainland Ecuador to seek a better life serving the visitors.
Today, the permanent population is officially restricted to a current level of 18,640 living only on the 3 percent of the land which is not assigned to the National Park.
"But I don't know how long the line can be held unless life gets better on the mainland," said one park official who asked not to be identified. "Everyone knows you can earn more here, and bribes can get permits."
BAGGAGE SEARCHES
Travelers on flights to the two main Galapagos airports from Ecuador's Andean capital Quito or Guayaquil on the coast face searches of their luggage to ensure they are bringing nothing that could pose an ecological danger.
The procedure is repeated on arrival. But on a recent visit it was so chaotic as to appear no more than a formality.
"We know it is not working very well yet," says Fernando Espinoza, executive director of the Darwin Station on the outskirts of Puerto Ayora, the Galapagos' largest town, on Santa Cruz.
"But within the next five years, with $5 million promised by the government, we will have a top-class quarantine system."
Espinoza was speaking in his office near the pens where station biologists rescued one variety of the giant tortoise that gave the islands their name from obliteration by the egg-eating goats.
"There is a real threat from invasive alien species," he says -- feral cats and dogs as well as the goats, insects that arrive in food shipments or luggage, and plants whose seeds can arrive on plane wheels as well as travelers' boots.
A population of 20,000 wild pigs, descendants of animals brought from the mainland mid-way through the 19th century, has just been eliminated from Santiago island where they had devastated long-established wildlife and plants.
But a recently arrived black fly is decimating Darwin's finches on Santa Cruz at the heart of the islands, using the birds' nests to incubate its larvae which burrow their way into finch chicks' brains.
A fever-carrying mosquito is another worry, while station scientists have just gone to the unusual lengths of themselves introducing a ladybug from Australia to battle another insect -- a cushion-scale beetle.
The beetle, a prime item on the ladybug diet, appeared on the islands in 1982 and destroys plants and shrubs which provide food and shelter for native birds and insects.
"To win this battle, we have to convince the people who live here to work with us," says Paola Diaz, an aide at the Darwin Foundation, which draws its funds -- currently around $4 million a year -- from government and private donors around the world.
And the survival report by an international team who toured the island two years ago says a educated population is vital.
There have been tensions between the station, which with the park service has the right to impose restrictions on marine life catches around the islands when its specialists judge a species endangered, and local fishermen.
"But we have worked with their wives, and especially the children. And we are confident that the generation that is growing up will be very ecologically conscious and totally on our side," Diaz says.
Aside from that, the islands are beautiful ranging from flat deserts to wooded mountains and it's a real thrill to swim and dive with sea lions, hammerhead sharks, and penguins. I highly recommend it!
[This ping list for the evolution -- not creationism -- side of evolution threads, and sometimes for other science topics. To be included, or dropped, let me know via freepmail.]
But the day-owl is only one of many quirks of nature on the volcanic outcrops straddling the Equator in the southern Pacific whose unique wildlife helped Charles Darwin more than 150 years ago shape the principle of evolution through natural selection that today is the bedrock of scientific thought on the origins of life.An example of poor science journalism. Evolution starts only after life is present. Traditionally, the theory of evolution is not concerned with the actual origin of life, only the origins of different species.
Yeah. Evos have enough time coming up with Just So stories for evolution. How on earth can we expect them to tackle beginning of life?
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