Quito: Ecuadorian prosecutors announced on Monday an investigation into the alleged hunting and killing of 4 giant tortoises in the Galapagos Islands, an exclusive and fragile ecosystem World Heritage Site.
The prosecutor’s office said on Twitter that it is investigating “the alleged hunting and killing of 4 giant tortoises in the Galapagos National Park Wetland Complex. “
A unit specializing in environmental crimes collects testimonies from the national park and appoints experts to perform autopsies on the turtles.
The park’s control filed a complaint over the animals’ deaths, the ministry said on its WhatsApp channel.
The ministry did not specify which species the 4 turtles belonged to, but said they were hunted in the wetlands of Isabela Island, 1,000 kilometers off the coast of Ecuador in the Pacific Ocean.
Hunting wild animals carries a penalty of up to 3 years in Ecuador.
In 2019, a subject who hit a turtle and broke its shell was fined $11,000. That same year, another driving force had to pay more than $15,000 for running over and killing a local Galapagos iguana.
With a domain of more than 4,500 kilometers, Isabela is the largest island in the archipelago and represents 60% of the land surface of the remote ocean chain.
The Galapagos Archipelago is designated as a Biosphere Reserve for its exclusive flora and fauna. It once housed 15 species of turtles, 3 of which disappeared centuries ago, according to the Galapagos National Park.
In 2019, a turtle of the species Chelonoidis phantastica was found on the island, more than a century after its purported extinction.
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