Charles Darwin Research Station, Santa Cruz

Charles Darwin Research Station at a glance

1. 1

   Santa Cruz — Charles Darwin Research Station

   The Charles Darwin Research Station sits at the edge of Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz. It is a working science and breeding facility, not a zoo: corrals of juvenile tortoises being raised to a size predators cannot take, hatchling pens, and the preserved body of Lonesome George on display. It is walkable from town and free.

Photographs

Charles Darwin Research Station, photographed on our own trips

Our own photographs, not stock. Each caption says exactly where and when it was taken.

• 

How you get there

On foot from Puerto Ayora

Along the seafront to the eastern end of town, then a short walk through cactus. Easy, and there is no reason to take a taxi.

It sits on Santa Cruz, so how you reach the island decides how you reach this.

What you actually see

The rearing corrals

Tortoises graded by age, from hatchlings the size of a hand up to juveniles ready for release. They are held until their shells are hard enough that rats cannot take them.

Lonesome George

The last Pinta Island tortoise, preserved and displayed in his own room. He is smaller than people expect and the room is quiet.

The land iguana enclosure

Part of the programme that has repopulated islands where they had been wiped out. Less visited than the tortoises and more interesting than it looks.

What goes wrong

We run these trips, so we know what people complain about afterwards. Better to read it here than find out on the day.

People expect a zoo

It is a working facility. The signage is scientific, the enclosures are functional, and there is no show. Visitors who came for spectacle leave flat.

It is hot and shadeless in the middle of the day

The walk out and the corrals are both in the open. Early morning.

The wild tortoises are elsewhere

If you want to see them free-ranging rather than in a pen, that is the highlands, not here. Do both — they are different experiences.

Who this is not for

Saying this costs us bookings and saves the trip. If any of these is you, tell us and we will build the day differently.

• Anyone hoping for a wildlife spectacle. This is conservation infrastructure.
• Visitors who only want to see tortoises in the wild — go to the highlands instead.
• People short on time in Puerto Ayora who have not yet seen Tortuga Bay.

What lives here

• Galápagos giant tortoise — Hatchlings and juveniles from several island populations.
• Galápagos land iguana — In the breeding enclosure.
• Darwin’s finches — Wild, all over the grounds, and easy to compare side by side.

Nearby

Every visitor site we have written up → · Santa Cruz, the whole island →