Looking the tortoises is illegitimate beneath Ecuadorean regulation, and the Galapagos islands have been protected as a nationwide park because the Sixties.Nevertheless, tortoise meat is taken into account a delicacy by wildlife hunters and, based on the Galapagos Conservancy -- a US-based non-profit group specializing in sustainable growth of the archipelago -- greater than 15 animals have been discovered lifeless within the Galapagos within the final yr, elevating fears the animals are being focused by a wildlife trafficking community."This isn't an remoted incident. In September 2021, the stays of 15 critically endangered Big Tortoises from the subspecies Chelonoidis guntheri had been discovered on Isabela. Proof from the investigation confirmed that the reptiles had possible been hunted for consumption," it mentioned in an announcement, including that the group "strongly condemns the poaching and consuming of Big Tortoises as an environmental crime."Prosecutors mentioned {that a} particular unit for environmental crime (UNIMEN) traveled to the islands Tuesday, that are positioned roughly 600 miles offshore of Ecuador's Coast, within the Pacific Ocean.The workforce includes of consultants in animal necropsy and detectives who're interviewing park rangers, based on the Lawyer Normal's workplace.Big Galapagos tortoises are among the many longest-living animals on the planet, with a lifespan of greater than 100 years. They had been closely researched by English biologist Charles Darwin, who pioneered the speculation of evolution, within the nineteenth century. The tortoise, the most important cold-blooded terrestrial herbivore discovered on Earth, performs a essential position as an agent of stability within the Galapagos.Numbers of Galapagos tortoises have declined by 85% to 90% because the early 1800s, based on a June 2022 research, when whalers and pirates first arrived within the archipelago. As pirates raided South American colonies and whalers hunted within the surrounding waters, they made the enormous tortoises their meals supply.