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What an absolute privilege to get so close to these incredible beasts – felt like I was in Jurassic Park! 🐢🤣🇲🇺🦕 Pristine Rodrigues – a small island east of Mauritius – used to have the world’s highest density of giant tortoises. It took humans only 100 years to drive both of the island’s endemic species to extinction 💔
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A combination of loss of habitat, young killed by introduced species (cats, dogs, rats etc.) and appx. 280,000 tortoises been killed for meat or oil finished them off. Alas, an all too familiar story; the fate of Mauritius’ dodo was the same, along with many other species of flora and fauna. The sole surviving giant tortoise in the Indian Ocean today is this one, the Aldabra from the Seychelles 👆
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But, there is good news! In 2006 and 2007, an initiative began to re-introduce two species of giant tortoises that are the closest living relatives to the extinct Rodrigues tortoises. The introduced tortoises were all captive bred here at @lavanillenaturepark 🌿
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The re-wilding of these two species has been so successful that today there are 2500+ wild tortoises back on Rodrigues, once again performing their key role in the ecosystem as grazers and seed dispersers 🐢 It’s a heart-warming conservation success story. This nature park is absolutely stunning, and they’re involved in other conservation projects too. Don’t miss this place when in Mauritius 💚
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Also, tortoises are FRISKY. If you didn’t catch it, may I suggest going through the ‘Mauritius’ highlight on my profile until you get to the tortoises for a specific video – it might be the hardest you’ll laugh all week – sound on! 😂
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