Pinta Island

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Topographic map of the Galapagos Islands, with Pinta Island in the northwest.

Pinta Island, also known as Abingdon Island, after the Earl of Abingdon, is an island located in the Galapagos Islands group, Ecuador. It has an area of 60 km² and a maximum altitude of 777 meters.[1]

Pinta was the original home to Lonesome George, perhaps the most famous tortoise in the Galapagos Islands. He was the last known representative of the subspecies Chelonoidis nigra abingdonii.

Satellite image of Pinta Island

Pinta Island is also home to swallow-tailed gulls, marine iguanas, sparrow hawks, fur seals and a number of other birds and mammals.[citation needed] The most northern major island in the Galapagos, at one time Isla Pinta had a thriving tortoise population. The island's vegetation was devastated over several decades by introduced feral goats, thus diminishing food supplies for the native tortoises. A prolonged effort to exterminate goats introduced to Pinta was completed in 1990, and the vegetation of the island is starting to return to its former state.

The elongated island of Pinta is the northernmost of the active Galapagos volcanoes. Pinta is a shield volcano with an extensive underwater footprint originating from NNW-trending fissures.[2]

On January 28, 2008, Galapagos National Park official Victor Carrion announced the killing of 53 sea lions (13 pups, 25 youngsters, 9 males and 6 females) at Pinta, Galapagos Islands nature reserve with their heads caved in. In 2001 poachers killed 35 male sea lions.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Rocchio, Laura; Allen, J., Simmon, R., and Taylor, M. (July 21, 2012). "Pinta Island". Earth Observatory: Images. EOS Project Science Office, NASA Godard Space Flight Center. Retrieved June 17, 2013. 
  2. ↑ Schlitzer, W.; Harpp, K.S., Mittelstaedt, E.L., Kurz, M.D. Geist, D. (2011). "The Effect of Lithospheric Discontinuities on the Composition of Lavas From the Northern Galápagos Platform Extension". Retrieved 24 November 2013. 
  3. ↑ "Sea lions massacred in Galapagos", BBC News (BBC), January 29, 2008, retrieved June 17, 2013 
Main islands
Minor islands

Coordinates: 0°36′N 90°45′W / 0.600°N 90.750°W / 0.600; -90.750

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