There are two ways to introduce this story: we could pay tribute to a giant tortoise stud – a king, if you will – who is credited with saving his species after fathering more than 800 other giant tortoises.
Or, we could use the words of my colleague Mel and say, “Look at this virile cunt.”
Diego, a Galapagos Giant Tortoise, is retiring after more than 50 years of splooging for his species.
In the 1960s, there were just 14 giant tortoises left on the Isla Santa Cruz in the Galapagos Islands, off the coast of Ecuador. Just two of them were males, and one of them was Diego. Worse still, the tortoises were spread too far apart to even find each other, make sexy tortoise eyes, and bone.
The species was doomed.
So, a breeding programme was established at the San Diego Zoo in California, with Diego and his tortoise brethren tasked with fucking for their lives. (I don’t know how it worked – maybe the zoo keepers put out little candles and plates of spaghetti à la Lady and the Tramp??? I will not be researching further.)
Zoo keepers estimate that Diego, now 100 years old, fathered more than 40 percent of the 2,000 giant tortoises alive today. And now, he’s going home.
Ecuador’s Environment Minister Paulo Proaño Andrade said it was the “close on an important chapter” in the management of the Galapagos National Park.
“15 tortoises, including Diego, will return home after decades of breeding in captivity and saving their species from extinction. Your island welcomes you with open arms,” Andrade said on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/PauloProanoA/status/1272501209165897729
Happy retirement, king.
