The Galapagos, a new perspective with Dr. Georgia Purdom

Creation Fellowship Introduction and Speaker Bio

Okay, so there we go. And I am Terry cameras out here with creation fellowship, where a group of friends bound by our common agreement that the creation account, as told in Genesis is a true depiction of how God created the earth and all life in just six days, about 6000 years ago, we met for about 10 years in person at the creation Earth History Museum in Santee, California, but took to this online platform in June of 2020 and haven't looked back.

You can now find links to most of our past presentations by typing in tiny URL .com forward slash CF Santee that see like creation F like fellowship and Santa is spelled s a n t e email us at creation fellowship Santee at gmail .com to get on our email list so you don't miss any of our upcoming speakers and we never spam.

Joe and Stacey Gaona have been our friends and men and members for many years and since Joe's home going last year we always want to honor his memory by mentioning the continuing work of his ministry throughout all ages throughout all ages ministries focuses on reaching people with the gospel contending for the faith and stirring the body to love and good works, although they enjoy street witnessing and other evangelistic opportunities, God has blessed them with the unique privilege of being able to go into public schools and speak to young people on relevant topics, you can learn more about throughout all ages ministries by visiting throughout all ages .com.

Joe was one of our past speakers and God has blessed us with a number of great speakers from scientists, doctors, authors, pastors prophecy speakers, and all around smarty pants people who love the Lord and have a message to share.

In fact, one of our past present presentations was by a cartoonist Dan Lita and he's going to introduce our speaker tonight but before that I just want to mention, if you're here with us in zoom, or if you're following along on the Facebook live stream and you have questions during the presentation, you can put them into the chat or comments, and we'll ask them to our speaker during the live q amp a at the end.

Okay, with that, Dan, I'll turn it over to you.

All right, our speaker Dr Georgia perdom holds a PhD in molecular genetics from the Ohio State University, the Ohio State University. She gained her degree in the year 2000, her specialty is cellular and molecular biology.

Dr Perdom served as an associate professor in biology for six years at Mount Vernon Nazareth Nazarene University in Ohio before coming to answers in Genesis, Dr Perdom joined AIG and 2008 that right. And is 2000s.

Okay, 2006, and is the director of education content and actively speaks and writes for answers in Genesis, Dr Perdom expertise in natural selection was crucial in her design of the natural selection is not evolution exhibit at the.

She also has research interest in speciation of animals after nose flood and design features in DNA,. Dr Perdom describes herself as a teacher at heart, and this is clearly displayed in her presentations, Dr person, Dr Perdom also heads up the annual answers for women conference in April, and offers a variety of speakers on the topics relevant to women, and it is one of the largest and best conferences hosted by answers and Genesis, Dr Perdom is a wife to her husband Chris and a mother to their daughter Elizabeth.

She is an excellent speaker writer scientist wife, mother, and friend, I present to you, Dr Georgia Perdom.

A Biblical Creation View of the Galapagos

Well, thank you Dan that was an awesome introduction. How very nice. So, well, um, when Dan and Terry had asked me about coming to speak to you I said well what topic would you like because a lot of times when I go and speak at churches and things it's but it's a large group with a wide variety of backgrounds and so I have to kind of start with the basics and really help people understand things, but it's not often that I get to talk to an actual creation group that has a lot of background and knowledge in this area and so Terry, Terry said well we'd really love to hear about the Galapagos and so I was like, Oh, I would love to be able to share about that I don't get to do that very often and so it was really fun to be able it's really fun to be able to present that to you so I'm going to share my screen so that hopefully this works.

Okay, I'm going to share that with you. And so just give me a minute here to do this because this is not something I do a lot of. There we go. Okay, let's see if I can do this. Okay, hold on one minute here.

Dr Georgia so you're not too worried. We had a speaker where I had to call him on the phone and kind of tell him how to get on his laptop. Well I know how to get. Let's see. I'm down there. Yeah, do you see screen share.

Well I know how to share the screen. The problem is it's not sharing like the whole slide like it's sharing just like. Okay, I know what I want.

And so when when you click on share screen does it give you a like a white page that gives you a couple different options like are there little squares or something. Yeah, it does that.

That's not the issue so much. The problem is, I know what I wanted to do it's just not doing it.

Terry. Can you double check that it's set for her to share.

Yeah, it's not for me to share I can definitely do that so that's not the problem. So, give me a minute here. Oh sure, not a problem. Home is it's not letting me share. That's not what I want to share.

Well maybe I can hold on, let me see if I can do it now. Oh, there we go. I got it. Cool. Okay. Ready to go. So we're going to be talking about Galapagos, a different view and the reason that I call it a different view is because this is, I'm going to be sharing the biblical creation view of the Galapagos Islands, not the typical evolutionary view that people hear about the Galapagos and so I have a book.

So after I went to the Galapagos actually wrote a book with a lot of other different people contributing to it and it has the same title Galapagos, a different view. So, I traveled there back it's been a long time ago now back in 2011.

And, and so it's been a while but I really enjoy telling people about all the experiences that I had there and really helping people understand that what we're seeing there really is a result of things like natural selection, speciation, the islands form post flood, you know, a lot of those things that we're going to be talking about and really understanding them from a different, a different view.

And so, Charles Darwin, obviously he's one of the people that's most associated with the Galapagos Island. He had a very different starting point when he looked at the Galapagos and he actually stated in his Beagle diary he said this, he said, I am glad we have visited these islands such formation surely rank high amongst the wonderful objects of this world.

It is not a wonder which at first strikes the body but rather after reflection the eye of reason and so who for Darwin, whose reason right because he's not starting with a biblical worldview for him it was really man apart from God and so he went on to say, he said through the whole throughout the whole group of islands every single atom, even from the most minute particle to large fragments of rocks bear the mark stamp of ones having been subjected to the power of organic arrangement and so again for him it was the, the power of organic arrangement, the power of nature, right, versus really the power of God and biographers of Darwin said gradually during the voyage not by any Eureka revelation Darwin synthesized all that he had seen with what he had read and discussed with others and out of this mix began to see a natural explanation for the otherwise mysterious birth or appearance of new species and so obviously again they're saying a natural explanation this is what Darwin was seeing for how these things appeared.

And so one of the conclusions that Darwin drew from what he observed is that actually speciation was occurring on the Galapagos Island. He said, when I recollect the fact that from the form of the body shape of the scales in general size, the Spaniards can at once pronounce from which island any tortoise may have been brought when I see these islands inside of each other and possessed of but a scanty rock of site of site animals tenant by these birds but slightly differing structures and filling the same place in nature.

I must suspect they are only varieties. Okay, so I would agree they're varieties, you know, that's exactly what he is seeing. He's really here talking about speciation, the different species of tortoises, the different species of mockingbirds, the different species of finches, but that's speciation really that he's talking about not one animal becoming a different kind of animal.

And so I would agree to an extent with Darwin that it is natural, so to speak. Obviously God designed animals to be able to speciate to adapt and change in some way. So God set those processes in place, obviously, and so the organisms then fill the earth and speciate and do those things.

They're doing what God designed them to do. But again, the problem was that Darwin did not start with God's word, right? He started with man's word. He started with his own ideas about the path. And apart from God, and so the conclusions that he drew from what he observed in the present, speciation, which is true, like I said, that's something that we observe, led to false ideas about the unobservable past, which is molecules to man evolution.

So he's going to say, well, look at the, and we're going to see, and I'm going to show you some quotes, is, you know, look at these different species of organisms. Well, what could happen if you leave it over long periods of time, right?

Maybe you get more than just different species. And so that's the problem with what he is doing. And so this is another quote that he shared. He said, let a pair be introduced to an area and increase slowly from many enemies so as often to intermarry.

Who will dare say what the result? According to this view, animals on separate islands ought to become different if kept long enough apart with slightly different circumstances. And so then he gives some examples of some of the animals.

So again, they're going to be different. Yes, speciation, I would agree with that, but Darwin didn't stop there, right? Because he says, who will dare say what the result if they're kept long enough apart, right?

What happens if you give it enough time? And Darwin's biographer said this, and 30 pages later, after he wrote that exact quote in the notebook, he drew his historic branching diagram showing how different species might be linked to each other by common descent.

And I actually checked that out to make sure they were legit and what they were saying on that, and they are. And so this is a very famous diagram that he wrote called, you know, he put I think at the top.

And the idea is that you start out with a common ancestor, the common evolutionary tree, and then you branch into all these other organisms. And so he believed with enough time, you know, and he was reading geology books from people like Charles Lyell that gave him the millions of years that he needed that he could get these large scale changes.

Not just a tortoise becoming different species of tortoise, but becoming a non-tortoise, okay, becoming something completely different. And so one kind could change into a completely different kind of animal.

And so that's far beyond what he ever observed, right? So he crossed the line. He crossed over from observational science, what he could see, to what we would call historical science. And historical science is very dependent on starting points.

Again, do we start with God's word or do we start with man's word? And that's what he was doing. And so when we start with the history in Genesis, though, we know these views, these ideas are false, right?

Because we know that God created animals according to their kind. And while they can speciate and change into different species, they can't change into a completely different kind of animal. And we don't have the molecules to man evolution.

There's no basis for that in scripture. So we are going to look at the Galapagos, starting with God's word. So like I said, I ended up in the Galapagos back in 2010. And it all started with this lovely couple, Penny and Lance David.

And so they are with the Living Science Home Study Center in Atlanta, Georgia. And what they do is they partner with homeschool parents to offer hands-on science classes with labs there in Atlanta and field trips.

So this is obviously a very cool field trip. And when I first met them, actually even a few years before we left for the trip, they were looking for an answers in Genesis scientists to come with them.

And it's kind of every biologist's dream to go to the Galapagos Islands. It's sort of like a pilgrimage. And so I was really excited to do that. I was young at the time. And so that's what kind of stopped me from doing it a few years prior.

But she was, I think, about six years old when I finally did go. And so I felt a little more comfortable doing that. But this is the group of students that we... So these were junior high to actually college-age students there.

And we actually had a videographer they brought along. So we got to take some amazing footage. So I'll show you some of that as we go. One of the ways that we could film actually in the Galapagos was we had to agree to get a film produced for the Galapagos National Park so they could see that we were legitimate in what we were doing.

And of course, in that one, we couldn't have that biblical worldview. But we did produce another video that did have that information in it. So this next clip I'm going to show you is sort of an intro that we did to that video.

And so I'm just going to show you a short clip. And hopefully this sound plays and this works okay.

Discover one of the world's most fascinating and beautiful places. Experience an exotic wonderland of adventure. Join living science students as they explore the Galapagos Islands. Hear intriguing facts from our naturalist.

The excitement of our students and knowledge from our scientists. Prepare to be amazed by this incredible adventure. Experience what it's like to island hop by pango. Climb steep stairs and hike through dramatic wilderness trails.

Take in the spectacular vistas of giant lava fields and the breathtaking beauty of recent volcanic activity. Living science takes pleasure in bringing you a unique look at students who are searching for landscapes, plants, and wildlife like never before.

Up close and personal.

So that just gives you a little bit of a taste of some of the things that we're going to talk about and the amazing things that we got to see there in the Galapagos. So the Galapagos Islands, let's see.

Start right here again. There we go. The Galapagos Islands is a group of islands of volcanic origin located about 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador near the equator. And so that little circle there that appeared, they're really, really tiny there, but they're just off the coast of Ecuador.

Here's another picture where you can see a little bit better. So we actually flew into Quito, and then we flew to a coastal city and Guayaquil, and then we flew to the Galapagos. And it first basically appeared on the maps in the late 1500s.

And in following years, it was visited a lot by pirates and whalers. They used it for hideouts. They would use it to store supplies on. So it was kind of a great area basically for that. And all of the islands now are considered to be part of the Galapagos National Park.

There's only about five of the islands. There's quite a few of the islands. Some of them are really tiny, but only about five of the islands actually have human populations on them, and about 30 ,000 people live there now in the islands.

Geology, Climate, and Post-Flood Formation of the Islands

So let's talk a little bit about the geology of the islands. Okay, so I may not be a geologist, but it is important to understand these because obviously these aren't millions of years old like you would hear if you would go there or you study them at all.

But really, they're much younger than that. These have been formed post-flight. And so what I'm showing you here is there's several oceanic plates that all meet right in the area where Galapagos is. And so that creates hotspots because of the movement of the plates and the magma underneath coming up.

And so where these hotspots are, create these volcanic islands. And what it actually is, and I'll show you this in the next one, is sort of a conveyor belt. So as the plates move, these volcanoes will form over the hotspots.

And then that volcano sort of moves down a little bit further away from the hotspot as it kind of spreads as the plates move. And then you get another volcano forming and that continues to move. And so the further east that you go, the older the islands are.

The further west that you go, the newer the islands are because the hotspot is sort of over where those western islands are now. Some of the islands, if you go far enough east, are actually completely submerged.

So it looks like they used to be above ground, but they're not above ground anymore because, again, they kind of went off the hotspot so there's no more active volcanoes. So the further east you are, the more the landscape is very lush and very green.

The further west you go, it's much more volcanic looking. Again, a lot of lava, obviously not. Well, it is active at some times, but not while we were there. But you can see that. Now, again, all this is conventionally dated to be millions of years old, but we know from biblical history that these islands can't be more than about 4 ,000 years old.

We don't know exactly when they started to form, but it was definitely in a post-flood world. So this is a volcano map. So this shows the little triangles all indicate the different volcanoes. And on Isabela, which is the biggest island that you see there, a wolf volcano actually just erupted earlier this year.

So these are active volcanoes. So you get a lot. So the further east you go, you don't have as many volcanoes like San Cristobal, because again, those are the older islands and they just don't have any.

They do have only about two seasons there. So it's either wet or it's dry season. Wet season, we were there during the end of that, which is December through May. Dry is June through November. And it's a very interesting climate in the Galapagos Islands because of all these different ocean currents that are basically meeting there.

So you have high pressure currents as well as warm currents that all kind of meet together. It's not a characteristic equatorial climate. So you would expect it maybe to be very jungle-like, but it isn't because of the mixing of the hot and the cold water.

It actually brings in very nutrient-rich water to that area. And that's really important because there isn't a lot of vegetation on especially the bigger islands because there are more recent. And so a lot of the wildlife there depends on the water for their nutrition, basically.

That's where they get their food from. And so that's an important thing. They also then become greatly affected by El Niño and La Niña events because of that confluence of those currents there. It also makes the waters very rough, which can be really interesting when you're living on a small cruise ship on the island.

We didn't actually stay in any hotels. We just stayed on a ship. And so that can be kind of interesting. So let's start our journey kind of around the island. So I was actually there for two weeks, and I'm not going to go through every little thing that we saw, but I want to point out some of the major things that we saw while we were there that are just, I think, very interesting.

San Cristobal Wildlife and Early Speciation

So we started in San Cristobal, which is one of the furthest east islands that we visited. And this is Jamie. So Jamie was our naturalist. So the deal was when you go to the Galapagos, you have to have a naturalist with you.

You can bring your own naturalist, but you have to have one of their naturalists as well. He had been there 22 years, and he was considered literally one of the best that the Park Service had to offer.

He was fantastic. Now, he was not a Christian, but I don't remember him even saying, or he didn't say it very often, that the islands were millions of years old. He focused on what he could see and observe, and he was very smart.

He had read a lot as far as the biology goes, some of the animals on the islands, and he offered a lot of insights. I had studied it a lot before I went, so I knew he was really up to date on a lot of things.

So that was really neat to do that and have that experience with him. And so soon after we arrived on the boat, we actually, that's our cruise ship there. So it's a small cruise ship. We got to go to see, start seeing some of the wildlife there.

And one of the first things we saw were the Sally Lightfoot crabs, the red-blue crabs that you see in a lot of places. They really stand out against the dark lava terrain. The darker crabs, you can kind of see it in the bottom picture there.

It kind of blends in a little more. Those are the males, and the brighter ones are actually the females. And then one of the things we saw a lot of was the Galapagos sea lion. So I call sea lions the cats of the sea because they sleep a lot, they play a lot, and they're very friendly which we'll talk a little bit about later.

But they were, on this particular island, they were all over the place, and we even saw some young ones being nursed. They actually, the one on the bottom picture, that is a very young sea lion because it still has the fur on that.

They lose the fur after five months, and they suckle for about one to two years. They recognize each other by smell actually because they have super poor eyesight, but they talk to each other a lot too.

And so this next picture is the blue-footed booby. This is a very common bird on the island. Now, I have never done any wildlife photography before coming on this particular event. And these animals make it super, super easy because they literally just like stand there and let you take their pictures.

They don't really have a fear of man because most of the islands, again, are not inhabited. And so they don't, they just don't, they're not scared of you. So you can kind of walk up to them and take pictures.

You have to be a little careful, obviously, but that was really cool. And so we actually saw this couple doing a sort of a courtship dance to each other. So it involves a lot of, you saw it in the video a little bit, a lot of honking, a lot of whistling, a lot of flaring of their wings kind of up.

And it's really actually fun to watch. I have another, some other pictures later. So this is the quote unquote happy couple there. Their blue feet, the reason they're, it comes actually from their diet.

So they consume things that have carotenoids in them and they actually divert it to their integument or their skin. The bluer the feet, the more attractive they are to the females. At least when we're talking about the males, it's a sign of health, the bluer the feet are.

And so they like to obviously have that to attract the females. And we'll talk about that also happens a little bit with the frigate bird. This is the lava lizard. Now this guy, I would draw a circle around him because he blends in really, really well.

I don't know how many times we almost stepped on these guys because they're literally everywhere and they do blend in very well with their environment. Here's another picture. So the male is larger and duller and the female tends to be smaller and more colorful.

So you can see, I believe, and I'm not an expert, but that's a male and a female there in that picture. So the female is smaller, one off sort of to the side. And there's actually only one species of these on the Central and Western Islands, but on the Eastern Islands, which are older, there's actually six different species.

And so again, they're older islands and so they've had more time for that speciation to occur. So then we went from San Cristobal to Española. Española was actually probably my favorite island because it's really covered in vegetation.

It has these beautiful cliffs that you're seeing here. It has serene sandy beaches, just lush vegetation. Like I said, it was one of my favorites. So this is actually our group that is getting ready to film a segment for the DVD.

So you can see the beach there again and some sea lions. It was just a very beautiful setting and some more sea lion pictures because I think they're incredibly cute and they're fun to take pictures of and they really do sort of pose for you.

It was really interesting. There are some really large males that will patrol the coastline and they fight off the other males to be leaders of the harem because they have a lot of females obviously there that they want to be the lead on.

And so that can get kind of interesting at times. There's another one. This guy was so cute and he was very little and we thought he couldn't find his mom. Like he'd been abandoned. What was wrong there?

But our naturalist assured us, don't worry, he'll find mom, mom will find him. It'll be okay. But he would actually stay right with us the whole time we were filming. It was kind of fun. We actually got to see the hawk, the Galapagos hawk.

And again, the reason I'm not just calling it the Galapagos hawk, that is the species that it is on the island. So they have their own versions just like we'll see. They have the Galapagos penguin. They are unique from other species around the world.

This is a rather elusive bird. So it is kind of hard to get a picture of it. It's the top of the food chain there. It has no predators. But it is considered one species, the Galapagos hawk. But genetic studies have shown there are large differences actually in the genetic makeup of the hawks on different islands.

And they have slightly different appearances and behaviors. And what's interesting is when they go to an island, they just stay on that island. They don't tend to fly to other islands. So once that population has been established there, they tend to inbreed a lot.

And so they're one of the most inbred species of a bird in the world. And so we'll see. They may be in the early stages of speciation. Eventually, each island will have its own species of hawk. This is the hood mockingbird.

This is the only species of mockingbird that Darwin actually did not see or collect. He collected other ones, but not this one. This is on an island that has a lot of... later. And they actually have a symbiotic relationship with them.

So they eat parasites off the iguanas. And they actually make noises to help warn the iguanas of danger. So iguanas don't make any sound. And so they will actually kind of help them out. And they get food from them as well.

So it works out well for both of them. These are the Nazca boobies. So these are different types. These are blue-footed boobies. They're just a different species. Even though they look kind of really different, they are both in the same grouping, same genus.

And it really just shows, I think, the amazing differences that God is designed to be possible within a particular kind or even with a particular genus. They have actually a different courtship ritual.

So they don't dance and flare their wings as much. But they'll clack with their beaks. And we saw some of that behavior while we were there. This is the waved albatross. This is one of my favorite birds.

It is, this is the only place in the world where it reproduces. And we saw a lot of their nests there on the ground, even in A. They have a six to seven foot wingspan. It's kind of hard to appreciate that from the picture.

They can only take off, they can't take off from the ground. He's just stretching his wings there. But they actually have to fly off the cliff to get airborne because their wings are so long, the wingspan.

And so we saw a lot of them, they will fly out to the ocean for months at a time. They'll just remain in the air. I mean, they'll go down and get something to eat, but they'll eat it in the air. And then they'll actually float back on the water back to a Espanola to mate again.

So this is actually a group of them coming back in from being out for months at a time. This is the marina iguana. Okay, so I never want to call something that God made ugly. So I will just say they're very unique looking animals.

They're the only known species of iguana to actually feed in the water. They do eat algae. So they will dive for the algae and I'll show some pictures later of them. They are cold blooded, just like all other lizards.

So this is a very atypical behavior because it is so cold. I mean, it's going to be cold in the water, but yet this is how they have, this is how they work. Again, vegetation is usually very sparse on the island.

Especially during the dry seasons, but it's very plentiful, at least, you know, as far as vegetation goes in the water. And so they've adapted to these conditions. God has designed them to be able to do that.

It's not through the gain of new features. They haven't done any of that, but they have very long sharp claws and you can see that there in the picture. And I'll show their sisters, the land iguanas later.

Their claws are much shorter than that and not as sharp. They also have salt glands so they can get rid of excess salt from the salt water that they take in. But it's just really an enhancement of features that they already had.

Like I said, the land iguanas, their claws aren't as long or sharp and they just don't have as well developed salt glands because they don't eat in the water, they eat on the land, like their name says.

So it may be an example of what creationists term mediated design. And I co-authored an article on this subject in Answers Magazine several years ago. So I just put that up there and you can check it out.

It's free on the Answers in Genesis website. And again, God created these animals with a lot of genetic diversity and then as they diversified and filled the earth, we see that certain creatures have been able, it's kind of like a Swiss army knife, we say, they've been able to use those features and some of those features get enhanced over time.

But again, they were already there. They're just being enhanced. The claws grow longer. The salt glands become more well developed and they're able to use that and take advantage of the nutrients and the food that's in the water there.

All right. So they're mostly black. Depends on what island you're on, exactly what color combination they have. But they also have some red in them because they have a type of algae that they feed on basically there.

They blend in well with the volcanic terrain and the black color actually helps them absorb the heat better. They tend to congregate a lot in groups, which you see because it just helps them keep warmer.

And this is a whole bunch of them and that might not look like anything, but that's actually really, really high up on a cliff, but they can do that because of their really long claws. They can climb up there.

Floriana, Invasive Species, and the Post Office Tradition

Okay. So next we went to Floriana from Española. And so this, this island has a lot of different dormant volcanoes. They're no longer active. Every peak you see there represents a volcano. It has a very lush landscape again because it's one of the older islands.

So on this island is a famous post office box. And this was actually first set up by Willers in the 1700s. So it's been around a long time to get messages back home because obviously they didn't have the internet.

They didn't have phones. They didn't have postal, not much in the way of postal delivery. So you would put a letter in a barrel with your name on it and the location. And if someone else came along and they lived in close proximity to that, where that letter needed to go, they would take it back with them as they went back home.

The tradition still continues today. So you can take a postcard or a letter, you can put a stamp on it, and then somebody else will take it out and hopefully mail it for you. So that's kind of neat. These, something else that we have to deal with in the island is invasive species.

So even though only five of the islands are populated, obviously there's a lot of travelers to the island. And people visiting have either intentionally or unintentionally put things there that are problematic.

So the smooth-billed anny is one of those. It was actually first introduced to control cattle ticks. And cattle obviously were something that was also introduced to the islands. It's not native. And so now the anny's eat insects and that actually threatens sort of the food chain and some of the things that go, again, the insects are involved in on the island.

And the other one is the blackberry. So blackberry, we have that on our property. It does tend to overgrow. But it is not native to the island. And basically it's very hard to kill it because it tends to take over other vegetation.

The seeds can actually live up to 12 years in the ground. So it's very hard to eradicate it. But they're trying. But again, that's why they won't actually let you take food onto the islands. You can take water, but you can't take any food because they don't want trash left behind.

They don't want anything like the berries or anything like that left there to create problems. And so, for example, tortoises used to exist on Floriana, but they don't anymore because whalers and pirates would take them as a food source.

So that may sound kind of strange, but they live. They don't need much water or vegetation to actually live. So they're great to take on a ship. At least that's what they thought. And then they could, over time, when their food supply was getting low, they could kill them and eat them.

But again, they did it so much that now they don't even exist there. Darwin collected mockingbirds on this island that no longer exist there. And so the Charles Darwin Research Station that I'll show you later is actually very active in, first of all, trying to preserve these species.

They're also trying to get rid of these invasive species to these islands. They're trying to reintroduce tortoises, reintroduce mockingbirds, to try to get it back to the way it was. This is a cactus.