Lonesome George, last-of-its-kind Galapagos tortoise, dies

 This is sad, and very troubling to me. A great tortoise has passed, and in his passing there are no more. We as humans and keepers of our planet and all of its inhabitants, we have failed 'Lonesome George' and his ancestors, we have doomed his kind, and those of so many others to extinction, by our cruel, and heartless demise of our planet. When do we wake up and take charge of our climate, environment, water, waste, air, land rivers, lakes and oceans and do what we need to protect it for future generations?  Or do our future generations, our grandchildren, great grandchildren get to only see that which we have condemned in virtual zoos, and virtual museums, because we have left them nothing to inherit?  

What is that movie with Bruce Willis where he is a taxi driver, and everybody is forced to live high in the sky because down close to the earth is so polluted, nothing can live there. Ahhhhhhh, the 'Fifth Element'.  Is that where we are headed?  I am glad I will not be here, and I feel angry and disturbed for my future generations.  How do you feel?  Please do comment, I would like to know your stance.......   

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Galapagos tortoise, Lonesome George has died. The only remaining Pinta Island giant tortoise-believed to be the last of his species- was believed to be about 100 years old. ITV's Annabel Roberts reports. 

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By Isolde Raftery, msnbc.com

Lonesome George, the giant tortoise who became the face of the Galapagos Islands conservation effort, was found dead in his corral Sunday morning, according to a statement by the Galapagos National Park Service. He was believed to be more than 100 years old and weighed 200 pounds.

He is the last known Pinta Island giant tortoise, and his death likely marks the complete extinction of his subspecies.
Fausto Llerena, Lonesome George’s longtime caretaker, discovered the tortoise stretched out, leaning toward his watering hole. The cause of death remains undetermined and the tortoise’s body is being held in a cold chamber to avoid decomposition before officials conduct a necropsy, the park said.
For years, Lonesome George’s minders tried to encourage him to procreate, even offering $10,000 for a pure Pinta Island tortoise. The reward went unclaimed, and park conservationists brought in four female tortoises of similar species, but their eggs proved infertile.
Sveva Grigioni, a 26-year-old Swiss zoology graduate student, nobly contributed to the effort by attempting to manually stimulate George, according to “Lonesome George: The Life and Loves of a Conservation Icon,” a book by Henry Nicholls about the famous tortoise.
Grigioni’s work wasn’t completely for naught, as George started showing interest in the females in his corral.
“He started to try copulation but it was like he didn’t really know how,” Grigioni told Nicholls, according to a book review in the Guardian of London.
The giant tortoise is native to several of the Galapagos Islands, a volcanic archipelago west of the Ecuadoran mainland. Lonesome George was the last known individual of the Pinta Island tortoise subspecies (Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni).
A scientist studying snails spotted the tortoise later known as Lonesome on Pinta Island in 1971. The tortoise was brought to the Darwin research station the following year.
He was named Lonesome George (or Solitario Jorge) for George Gobel, the television star who played, according to a 2007 in The New York Times, the role of a “hapless, hen-pecked husband."
Some 20,000 giant tortoises of different subspecies still live on the Galapagos, according to Reuters.