Would you spend $5000 on a Galapagos tortoise hatchling?

Status
Not open for further replies.

spikethebest

Active Member
10 Year Member!
Joined
Aug 24, 2007
Messages
2,367
Location (City and/or State)
Southern California
Just curious what everyone's opinion would be on the pros and cons of buying a couple of galapagos tortoise hatchlings for $5,000 each.
 

Nay

Active Member
10 Year Member!
Joined
Oct 6, 2007
Messages
1,303
Location (City and/or State)
Belchertown Ma
RE: Would you spend $5000 on a Galapagos tortoise hatchling? I am about to buy 2.

Yikes!! Well if it's your dream, you feel good about the purchase place, have the accomodations, and it won't keep food from the youn'ns mouth, hey go for it, you only live once!!Just make sure to keep posting pics is all I can say, so we can live our dreams throuugh your purchase!!!
Good Luck.
Nay
 

tortadise

Well-Known Member
Moderator
10 Year Member!
Joined
Mar 2, 2012
Messages
9,560
Location (City and/or State)
Tropical South Texas
Many options that go into place here. They do get huge like the aldabras. But there are very few private breeders that are successful with reproducing them. Zoos even have tough time with them. San Diego is successful, Gladys porter is a huge producer. And a few more. That's it. most of them are different sub species and the studbook won't allow them to be hybridized and studbook registered. I'd say you have 4-7 successful private keepers that produce them. They also lay pretty small clutches and have low fertility rates. So babies are not often to come by. They are a remarkable species and endangered at that. So the more knowledgeable people to have them the better. Heck if I like a certain box turtle that just fancies my taste I'd pay anything for something I like. If its looked at from only a money stand point. Then no you should not purchase one. Dedication and desire typically outweigh money in this industry.
 

ILoveTortoises2

Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jul 18, 2013
Messages
479
Location (City and/or State)
Mansfield, Ma
tortadise said:
Many options that go into place here. They do get huge like the aldabras. But there are very few private breeders that are successful with reproducing them. Zoos even have tough time with them. San Diego is successful, Gladys porter is a huge producer. And a few more. That's it. most of them are different sub species and the studbook won't allow them to be hybridized and studbook registered. I'd say you have 4-7 successful private keepers that produce them. They also lay pretty small clutches and have low fertility rates. So babies are not often to come by. They are a remarkable species and endangered at that. So the more knowledgeable people to have them the better. Heck if I like a certain box turtle that just fancies my taste I'd pay anything for something I like. If its looked at from only a money stand point. Then no you should not purchase one. Dedication and desire typically outweigh money in this industry.

Couldn't say it any better then you just did :)
 

Jabuticaba

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Jul 12, 2013
Messages
1,744
Location (City and/or State)
Winnipeg, MB
Five grand certainly discourages those who can't afford to provide for them, especially once they're full grown, and demand more space and adequate environment.


May[CHERRY BLOSSOM], Hermann's [TURTLE][TURTLE] & Aussie [DOG FACE][DOG FACE][DOG FACE] (@YWG)
 

mike taylor

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Oct 28, 2012
Messages
13,461
No way babies die too easy. Now if it was a year or two old maybe .

Sent from my C771 using TortForum mobile app
 

BeeBee*BeeLeaves

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2013
Messages
2,312
Location (City and/or State)
Orange County, So Cal
Yes, I would!
I would if I could and had everything just right for one.
Other than that, like tortadise and Len said. Perfectly said by both.
 

johnsonnboswell

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Aug 27, 2012
Messages
2,238
If you feel so attached to it that you simply must pay the ransom, then yes. I wouldn't do it, but that's because I don't want one enough & don't have the place for it.
 

Jacqui

Wanna be raiser of Lemon Drop tortoises
Moderator
10 Year Member!
Joined
Aug 28, 2007
Messages
39,941
Location (City and/or State)
A Land Far Away...
I know I have a poor memory, but didn't you have one?
 

tortadise

Well-Known Member
Moderator
10 Year Member!
Joined
Mar 2, 2012
Messages
9,560
Location (City and/or State)
Tropical South Texas
Jacqui said:
I know I have a poor memory, but didn't you have one?

Who me? No those were some other rare specimens of tortoises. I will be getting some though for sure. Not babies. But I did spend the last 9 months creating an exhibit and proper set up for this species. Still needs a little TLC like the wallering hole. Which these species tend to need as they utilize them on the volcano hill sides. They truly are a lot different than an Aldabra. Some species are dry island habitats and can get serious fungal infections and die. Many zoos have had that happen. Some require rainy seasons, some cant be on grass but eat nothing but grass. Galaps are a very very interesting species. All of the sub species are surely different and require many different needs. The opinion from me again, is if your mentally and physically(housing, proper habitat, well researched etc...) ready to take the commitment they are worth any amount of money that the prospective buyer will be willing to pay. This goes for any species of turtle/tortoise, or animal. Even a human child. <---------uh oh might be a can o worms right there. :D
 

Millerlite

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Joined
Nov 20, 2008
Messages
2,670
Location (City and/or State)
Southern Calif.
5k is not bad, I've seen then anywhere from 3-5k and that's really not that much considering adults are in the 10-20k range depending on size and sex it can go even higher.

Really question is do you have room? They are huge just like the aldabras but it sure would be cool to have one


Check out my site and channel:
Www.tortoise-spot.webs.com
Www.youtube.com/tortoisespot
 

Baoh

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Joined
Nov 18, 2007
Messages
1,827
Location (City and/or State)
Florida
Spikethebest, did something happen to your Galapagos?

As for the question, yes, I would if I wanted one. However, I would generally rather keep an Aldabra. Of course, I could just have both if I wanted to, too.
 

cdmay

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Joined
Feb 1, 2008
Messages
1,945
Location (City and/or State)
Somewhere in Florida
It would depend on a lot of things. First of all (besides having the $$ I mean) I would want to know exactly which Galapagos tortoise I was getting. Life Fellowship here in Florida used to produce a lot of them not too long ago and they were 'only' $800.00. But the lineage of their breeders was somewhat in question.
To me, unless you simply want a giant tortoise as a pet, it is somewhat pointless to invest in such an animal without actually knowing what kind of Galapagos tortoise you are getting. Many of the captives in the U.S. are a hodgepodge of races and that greatly diminishes their value as future breeders.
Now, if one of the smaller saddleback Galaps (Hood or Duncan) were available in an unadulterated form, I would jump on them.
 

N2TORTS

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Feb 21, 2010
Messages
8,803
You would never know what species you have with out extensive DNA testing , and even those results would be sketchy, as natural hybridization takes place and has been for 1,000 of years already on the islands.

In CMI’s stunning Darwin documentary, The Voyage That Shook the World, we see an evolutionary expert refer to the astonishing types of hybridization, or crosses, that have taken place on the islands, even between two seemingly very different types of animal(but are really not). The film raises this as an argument for a young age for the islands—thousands of years. The reasoning is, as CMI geneticist Dr Rob Carter points out in Voyage, that the Galápagos species “made the jump from the mainland in the first place, and it’s 600 miles away, but the major islands are some 30, 40-odd miles apart … . so over deep time, over millions of years, the species would jump again and again and again and again, and you get all sorts of hybridization, and you get a blurring of the species lines*NATURALY*. The obvious is definitely natural selection in action, but not evolution. The possibility for these variations was already coded in the DNA of the tortoises’ ancestors, which allowed the tortoises to adapt to varying levels of vegetation and other environmental factors.

Over 10 sub-species have been identified (four of which are extinct), because they have distinct physical characteristics. But they can all interbreed with one another, so they are classified as one species of tortoise, Geochelone nigra.

It’s very easy to use a diagram showing in principle how several tortoise varieties can arise from one, simply by sorting already-existing genes via natural selection. For example, the smaller islands tend to be drier, so they don’t support much grass; the only vegetation is cactus and shrubs. So tortoises with saddlebacked shells that can browse will be able to eat, while domed tortoises starve. Thus the only tortoises to pass on their genes to the next generation are the saddlebacked ones.
The most distinctive difference among the sub-species is the variation in the shape of their shells.


Galápagos Conservation Trust, Galápagos giant tortoise, gct.org/tortoise.html, accessed 17 August 2009. Return to text. Walker, T., Don’t fall for the bait and switch: Sloppy language leads to sloppy thinking, Creation29(4):38–39, 2007
 

tortadise

Well-Known Member
Moderator
10 Year Member!
Joined
Mar 2, 2012
Messages
9,560
Location (City and/or State)
Tropical South Texas
Well put JD. I agree with Carl too. Last I looked at my papers on it. Isabella island has 4 subspecies all within very close range of each other. Volcano dwellers. I'm not too certain and its getting off topic. But I looked into getting some phenotype analysis done on some tortoises. I believe it was duke university that can possibly do it. buuuuut they can't just test it and tell you what it is. they need a known pure haplotype to test against.
 

CourtneyG

Active Member
5 Year Member
Joined
Nov 30, 2012
Messages
846
Location (City and/or State)
Auburn, Alabama
I have seen Galapagos hatchlings that are already a few inches sell for $3,500 each, that is a much better deal. I would buy one for that price, but not for 5K.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top