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How A Simple Prank Caused An Extinction Event
Not funny
In 1820, the whaleship Essex weighed anchor at an island in the Galapagos known then as Charles Island. The Essex was part of a fleet of ships that would depart from Nantucket, the little island off the coast of Massachusetts, with the purpose of filling their holds with valuable whale oil. The ships would leave for two to three years at a time, plying the seas looking for whales to hunt, kill and boil down into usable oil. By 1820, most of the whales off the East Coast of the United States had been killed and whalers had to move further afield to find their prey. Whale ships were sailing all the way around the southern tip of South America and into the Pacific Ocean in search of whales which brought them into contact with the Galapagos Islands.
Charles Island is one of the smaller islands in the Galapagos archipelago, measuring just 67 square miles. It is located south of the main islands. The ship was there to participate in an age old tradition where sailors would wade ashore and snatch as many Galapagos tortoises as they could. The tortoises made an excellent source of sustenance since they required very little food or water and could live on the deck of a ship for months.
Unfortunately for the animals on the island, one of the sailors of the Essex thought himself to be a jokester. Thomas…
