Forrest Galante Rediscovered Extinct Galapagos Tortoise | Joe Rogan

So the last time I saw you, I think, was right before we headed to the Galapagos. I was telling you about that crazy island we went on. We found that tortoise. Did you know that? Really? Yeah. First, only one specimen has ever been found before, 114 years ago. And we found the second one. The biggest discovery in my entire career was the week after I saw you last. Wow. Yeah. It was amazing. What kind of tortoise is this? It was called the Gondina Island Tortoise, big Galapagos tortoise on this crazy active volcano on far remote Galapagos. We had gnarly sunstroke, heat stroke, I mean, everything. And after a few days of hiking up and down this volcano, we found scat and then we found a dig like a tortoise had been digging, and 15 minutes later, we found the animal. I mean, how many of them are in the wild? There's a return trip that just one more turn trip just went right now, and then another one will go in January. What's great is on the first return trip, they had the bale because of weather, and the weather is very harsh there. They found evidence of two more animals. So things are looking really good. So there might be like four alive on the planet? Well, right now there's one, the one we found. She's literally the rarest animal in the world. Do you have an image of this? It's on my Instagram, but it was on Forbes, Times, New York, you know, everywhere. It was like big, big stuff. So you can look up for an Andean Island tortoise. When you find something like that, what gets done to ensure the population remains? There she is. There it is. Wow. So how did you know? What's the distinguishing factors? Like what? Well, it's the only animal on the island. It's the only tortoise on the island. So because, you know, tortoises kind of swim, at least not across the ocean. So because of where they were, if we had found a tortoise, it was going to be the Fernandina tortoise. Now that being said, the unique shell ridging, the shape. What a crazy animal. There's a video. Yeah, there you go. There she is. So cool. There's a video. Oh, I think it's the one in the top right of your screen right now where we actually find her. So you picked it up and carried it away? Yeah, we put her in a, she was super malnourished, underweight, dehydrated. She was stuck in an isolated pocket of vegetation because there's nothing but lava around her. Now this video is boring, but there's a cool one where you actually see me like find her in the bushes. And yeah, it was big. I was pretty happy. Wow. It was just such a big find. And so, you know, the tortoise, like Lonesome George, is an icon of conservation. So to find the species that the world had lost for 114 years was pretty great. Imagine being a tortoise, just chilling on this fucking island, hanging out, and some famous biologist flies from all the way around the world to find you. Like you're here, he's like crying and shit. You're like, I'm fucking here every day. Leave me alone. Yeah. Trying to find some plants, bro. I think in this case, she was stoked. And I'll tell you why. She was super dehydrated, super underweight, it's terrible living conditions, and she was stuck, right? So it's not like she could roam around the island and find lots of food and water. There's five foot shards of lava rock surrounding this little pocket of vegetation. So we moved her to the Fausto Lorena breeding facility, which is where Lonesome George was kept, that other famous tortoise. She put on like seven pounds or 17 pounds in like three weeks because she was so happy to eat. She didn't leave her water dish for like 10 days because she was just so happy to see water. Oh, wow. She was stoked. And now they're trying to find a male and- Trying to get some freak on. Yeah, trying to get the freak on. And this has spurred like a ton of resources, conservation dollars, return efforts. It's really big for the Galapagos. So how does that work if you do find a male? What if she's an old lady, she doesn't want to fuck, and you bring some male, and he's like, hey baby, and he's like 15, and she's 80. She's like, come on, dude. Fortunately, reptiles. Reptiles. Water. Yeah. Fortunately, reptiles breed until they die. Wow, really? So we should be good. And even more interesting than that is tortoises can retain viable sperm. So what we had hoped when we found her was that maybe she had copulated with a male 10 years prior and had been under such tough environmental stress that she hadn't had the biological energy to lay eggs. And we're thinking, oh, let's get her some food, get her some water. Who knows? Maybe she'll give some offspring. So she might already have fertilized eggs inside of her from 10 years ago? Yep. Sperm can live in them to up to 20 years. That's some serious sperm. Yeah. Tortoise sperm, slow and steady. That's a serious sperm. What goddamn, what fucking, what longevity? Yeah. Amazing. Really? Yeah. So if they find a viable male, and then they bring him to the facility and introduce him to all the food and water, do they have success in taking these wild tortoises and getting them to breed? Absolutely. And I think when you hear this... Yeah. And I think when you hear this, you're thinking they're like in a box, you know what I mean, in a zoo. They're in this thing that's bigger than your studio here. I don't mean this room, the whole studio, you know what I mean? It's all natural vegetation. Basically, we just moved her from one island to another where there's less stress. And now if they get a male, they'll just have them together. Hopefully they'll be offspring. Then they can release the offspring back on the island and the population can remain stable. That's awesome. Wow. That's really cool. That was fun. But I remember I was sitting here and we were talking about, I was like, yeah, you know, tomorrow I leave for the Galapagos. It's going to be gnarly, it's going to suck. And then we had this amazing find. So it was really cool. Now the Galapagos is so protected that don't they make you like put fresh shoes on? Like you can't bring shoes that you wore somewhere else that might carry seeds. Yep. We had to go to quarantine for 48 hours. Everything we brought with us had to go into a giant freezer. Yeah, freezer. And sit there for two days and we kind of had to twiddle our thumbs just waiting. And then we got all our stuff back, got on the boats and went out to that island. So the giant freezer supposedly kills any sort of spores or anything? It gets really cold if I remember correctly. And they go, you know, you go through everything. They look, they go through your boots. You look for any seeds. You go through your underwear, like literally everything to see if you're bringing any contaminants in. God, that's so fucking cool. It is. So the Galapagos is really the place where Darwin started formulating a lot of his theories of evolution, right? With the finches and the tortoises. Yeah. Look at that. That crazy skeleton. What is that from? Marine mammal, sea lion, possibly whale. It's hard to say. They got beach there or something? Wow. And then that's Fernandina. That's the stark island in the background actually where we found the tortoise. Oh wow. Yeah. It's a big ass island, man. To find one turtle tortoise. Excuse me. It's all good. I have a hard time with that. I didn't want to get lazy and just call them all turtles. She's got a shell. Fuck's the problem. Yeah. Just swim better. Yeah, no. So that was cool. It was crazy. Very difficult and hot and all those things and just so exciting. Wow, that's amazing. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 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