The Charles Darwin Research Station
A research station on the eastern edge of Puerto Ayora, which is a five-minute walk from the main pier. Founded in 1959 by the Charles Darwin Foundation, it is open every day with no entrance fee. This research station is the most visited attraction in the Galápagos, and it is actively driving the archipelago’s conservation efforts.
The Fausto Llerena Tortoise Breeding Center is the main highlight. Outdoor enclosures allow visitors to walk beside hatchlings, juveniles, and adults in different giant tortoise subspecies, including those from islands where wild populations once collapsed. The most memorable resident is Diego, a male Española tortoise repatriated from the San Diego Zoo in 1977, who fathered a large fraction of today’s restored Española tortoise population. He was returned to the wild on Española in 2020 after the program was declared a success.
Lonesome George is another honored symbol, the last Pinta Island tortoise who died on June 24, 2012, and whose preserved body is now on permanent display in a climate-controlled hall. The station also handles Darwin’s finches, marine iguanas, invasive species control, and tortoise reintroduction genetics.
Through captive breeding and repatriation programs by the Charles Darwin Research Station, Galápagos giant tortoise populations have risen from roughly 8,000–14,000 individuals in the 1970s to approximately 20,000–25,000 today.
