Isla Pinta EC - Will Lonesome George Find a Mate?

Isla Pinta - Landsat N-15-00_2000 (1:90,000)

Isla Pinta - EVS Precision Marplot (1:90,000)

This project took about 4-hours to digitize. The shoreline is a composite of two images. The majority of the shoreline was taken from Landsat ETM+ imagery. When it is cloud free, this imagery is easy to work with. However, when you have cloud obscured shorelines, they are often impossible to discern. The second image used is DigitalGlobe imagery taken from Google Earth. This allowed me to digitize the eastern shore.

I have included four additional layers of information, besides the shoreline - a Vegetation Sparse layer, Land Bare, Land Lava and Land Rocky Shore. All of these layers were taken from the Landsat ETM+ image.

Isla Pinta - DigitalGlobe Image from Google Earth - Eastern Shore (Red Polyline)

I love DigitalGlobe imagery! It is the best to work with, but there are so many real and possible restrictions that apply to derivitive works, maps in particular, that it is more trouble than it is worth. The red polyline is what I digitized from the DG image. I imported it into Global Mapper and stitched it into my EVS precision shoreline.

Isla Pinta - EVS Precision Marplot with 50-meter Contours (1:90,000)

Isla Pinta - EVS Precision Marplot with 50-meter Contours 3D View (1:90,000)

I took my completed map image and georectified it on top of my Global Mapper data. I also added the SRTM data to create contours and explore 3D views of the island. The first map above has 50-meter contours. The second image is a 3D view of the island looking toward the NE.

Lonesome George at the Charles Darwin Research Station (Credit: Credit: Alison Llerena/CDRS)

And finally, here is Lonesome George. He is the last Pinta Island tortise. He was found in 1972 and removed to Santa Cruz Island. He has a couple of Wolf Island female tortises as his potential mates. So far Lonesome George continues to play hard to get. He is estimated to be between 80 to 90 years old. If he doesn't hook up with a female tortise soon his Pinta Island breed ends. I wish him well and his future mate many tortise children.

Enjoy!