Good News??? (Re posted story)

[Nay]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/22/galapagos-tortoise_n_2176295.html

 

[Tom]

Cool story, but there are some inaccuracies. We just had TWO presentations done on this very subject at last weeks TTPG conference. It is actually better news than what is stated in the article. Yes they pulled DNA samples from 1600 animals, but not all of it has been tested. The 17 animals that were found to be hybrids, with half their DNA coming from Lonesome George's population, were actually quite young animals. This has caused the researchers over there to speculate that some of the adults that are still walking around over there are directly related to Lonesome George, and these living animals with still pure genetics are over there on and around Volcan Wolf creating these relatively young hybrids that have been found. There is now a rush on testing ALL of the collected DNA to see if these pure individual relatives of Lonesome George can be found and taken back to where they belong.

Kind of exciting news if you ask me.