Endangered
Chelonoidis chathamensis
Chelonoidis chathamensis
Chelonoidis niger chathamensis, called the Chatham Island giant tortoise or the San Cristóbal giant tortoise, is a subspecies of Galápagos tortoise endemic to San Cristóbal Island in the Galápagos.
Appearance
It has a wide, black shell, its shape intermediate between the saddle-backed and domed subspecies: adult males are rather saddle-backed, but females and young males are wider in the middle and more domed. A now-extinct, more flat-shelled form occurred throughout the wetter and higher regions of the island most altered by man when the island was colonized.
Range and habitat
Chelonoidis niger chathamensis, called the Chatham Island giant tortoise or the San Cristóbal giant tortoise, is a subspecies of Galápagos tortoise endemic to San Cristóbal Island in the Galápagos.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
In crisis
Trampling of nests by feral donkeys, and the predation of hatchlings by feral dogs decimated populations, but the breeding program has led to successful releases. Fencing of nests and dog eradication in the 1970s helped in the population recovery. Their population is thought to have dropped to as low as 500-700 individuals in the 1970s, and was around 24,000 prior to human contact.
In a census conducted in November 2016, the population was found to be making a rapid recovery. A total of around 6,700 individuals were found, with around 2,700 mature adults and 3,750 juveniles.
Chelonoidis chathamensis is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Chelonoidis chathamensis, Wikidata item Q2962224. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
