George eats gleefully his everyday portion of grass. The strong jaws grind without effort leaves and young sprouts. With his massive body, he shields the delicacies from two females.

George is not very interested in his female company. Other tortoises would eke out a scanty living as loners.

In the case of George, the scientists do not regret any effort in order to find a partner for this giant tortoise. As the case is, George is the last one of his species.

1971, on the search for wild goats on the Pinta island, a hunter found the orphaned male tortoise.
It must have been a huge surprise for him, as the tortoises of the Abingdoni subspecies were considered extinct for more than 60 years on the secluded island. In the following year the giant male tortoise was brought to the Charles Darwin Research Station on the Santa Cruz island, where it enjoyed sad glory as "Lonesome George".
 

George had spent several decades on Pinta without any fellows of his species. No wonder that the today 90-year-old did not feel very well in the company of other giant tortoises at first.
After the unexpected discovery of the Abungdoni male, the scientists hoped to find a female of the same subspecies with whom George would reproduce. The zoos all over the world offered a reward of USD 10,000 for an Abingdoni female. But the search for a partner was in vain, and Lonesome George remained the only representative of his species.

Out of the total of 14 tortoise species on the Galapagos only eleven species have survived the discovery of the archipelago by people. Some of them have just managed to escape their extermination.
Popular with the seafarers as "living provender" due to their frugality, the giant tortoises had to struggle for their habitat against imported food competitors and food enemies. The Geochelone Elephantopus Abingdoni subspecies living only on Pinta seemed to have lost this fight. In 1906 the last specimen before George's discovery was seen.

There is still the hope that somewhere in the rocky harsh terrain of the unpopulated island a suitable female will be found.

Until then, George lives in the company of two attractive females on the neighbouring island of Isabela.
But the hundred kilograms heavy colossus is not particularly interested in them. The tenders believed at first that he would be too weak to remain on the female. A strict diet of papaya and grass was to help him out with his love life, but George remained the listless patriarch in his enclosure.
"Sometimes George climbs up a female, but he is more interested in the food of the females than in sex," says Don Fausto, leader of the tortoise programme. "George has huge appetite and takes any steps to snatch something from the others."

His females of the Becki subspecies, coming from the surrounding of the Wolf volcano on Isabela, were considered George's next largest relatives until recently. However, the latest research has shown that the genetic code of the Hoodensis subspecies on the more remote Española island equals to a large degree to that of Abingdoni. So the days of the endless waiting for a female from Isabela seem to be counted. The planned rendezvous with the Hoodensis might make the blood of Lonesome George boil.

There is no reason for hurry because George is, in his 90 years, in his prime. Giant tortoises can live up to 150 or 200 years. So it might not be Don Fausto, but his great-grandson who will plant George's first Abingdoni offspring on Pinta.

Many tortoise species would not survive without the tortoise-breeding programme of the Charles Darwin Station...

From the emergence of the archipelago to its population by people