Auckland Zoo celebrates record Galapagos tortoise births

They weight just 100 or so grams. But in the decades to come, the new arrivals could top a whopping 250 kilograms.

They weigh just 100 or so grams. But in the decades to come, new baby Galapagos tortoises at Auckland Zoo could top a whopping 250 kilograms.

The zoo is celebrating its best ever clutch of the endangered animals.

They were put on show today for 1 NEWS after hatching two months ago.

“We’ve waited so long for this result and each time I come in here I’m amazed each time I see them,” ectotherm team leader Don McFarlane said.

“They are famously hard to look after, and to breed certainly,” he said. Another baby Galapagos Tortoise, Pinta, hatched in 2017.

But it was premature and suffered problems with its shell and an untreatable infection.

The baby tortoise had to be put down a few months later.

“So it’s with some reserve, of course, we share this happy news,” McFarlane said.

Zoo staff have to nervously wait to see if the latest babies stay healthy. At the moment, they are doing extremely well.

They come from the same parents as Pinta, 50-year-old mother Chippie and 49-year-old Smiley.

It’s instantly doubled Auckland Zoo’s population and even experts overseas are astounded.

“They can’t believe it either, they congratulate us but they’re horribly jealous,” McFarlane said.

At this stage the zoo is planning for the tortoises to stay at the zoo and it has enough room for them.

But they won’t reach adulthood for 20 to 40 years, and they could live to be more than 180. They’ll grow in mass by thousands of times.

The southern hemisphere had just 16 of the animals in captivity, so the new ones are a huge boost.

“It’s pretty special for us,” ectotherms team member Sonja Murray told 1 NEWS.

“We kind of got caught off guard, and were surprised there was four babies,” she said.

The zoo says it’s been working towards this moment for decades.

The new arrivals are kept in a humid and hot environment because they originate from equatorial islands.

They have terrain for climbing and grassy beds and are eating chopped hay, leaves and flowers.

“Like kids they do tend to gravitate to colourful sweet foods like bright hibiscus flowers and grated carrot,” McFarlane said.

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