{"id":89287,"date":"2026-02-22T13:02:39","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T07:32:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=89287"},"modified":"2026-02-23T13:45:36","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T08:15:36","slug":"floreana-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/floreana-island\/","title":{"rendered":"Floreana Island"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Floreana Island Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">More than 150 giant tortoises have been recently reintroduced to Floreana Island in Ecuador&#8217;s famed Galapagos archipelago, where they disappeared more than a century ago.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Floreana Island<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Floreana, <\/span><b>officially <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;<\/span><b>Santa Maria,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8221; is located on the <\/span><b>southern end of the Gal\u00e1pagos Archipelago<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> off the <\/span><b>west coast of continental Ecuador.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Spanning approximately 173 sq.km., it is a <\/span><b>volcanic landmass.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Situated in the middle of the<\/span><b> Pacific Ocean<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2014 roughly 1,000 kilometers from the mainland coast \u2014 it remains a remote and vital ecological site.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It supports a range of habitats, including <\/span><b>coastal lagoons, volcanic highlands, and offshore reefs.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was the<\/span><b> first island to be colonized by Ecuadorians in 1832.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It <\/span><b>was a penal colony that didn\u2019t last long<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> because of the <\/span><b>lack of fresh water.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Today, only around 150 people live<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> here, most in the small coastal <\/span><b>settlement of Puerto Velasco Ibarra, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">one of the smallest and most isolated communities in the Galapagos.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The majority of the inhabitants of Floreana Island still make a <\/span><b>living through farming.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>main water source<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for the entire island is <\/span><b>one natural pond that only fills up during the rainy season.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is known for the <\/span><b>historic Post Office Bay,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> where a<\/span><b> barrel mail system (dating to the 18th century) is still used by visitors.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Of all the Gal\u00e1pagos Islands, Floreana is the one <\/span><b>most affected by the presence of humans and their introduction of goats,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> which ended up roaming loose on the island for many years.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>goats and some other non-native species <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">were <\/span><b>completely removed <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">by the Gal\u00e1pagos National Park in 2007.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has the<\/span><b> highest concentration of species threatened by invasive mammals of any Gal\u00e1pagos Island,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with <\/span><b>54 IUCN Red-Listed species present. <\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.etvbharat.com\/amp\/en\/offbeat\/several-giant-tortoises-reintroduced-to-a-galapagos-island-enn26022101904\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">ETVB<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Floreana Island is located on the southern end of the Gal\u00e1pagos Archipelago off the west coast of continental Ecuador. Read more about Floreana Island, Latest News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":89327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5644,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-89287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-floreana-island","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89287"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89448,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89287\/revisions\/89448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}