Pinta Island, also known as Abingdon Island, after the Earl of Abingdon, is an island located in the Galapagos Islands group, Ecuador. It has an area of 60 km² and a maximum altitude of 777 meters.
Pinta was the original home to Lonesome George, perhaps the most famous tortoise in the Galapagos Islands. He was the last known representative of the subspecies Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni.
Pinta Island is also home to swallow-tailed gulls, marine iguanas, sparrow hawks, fur seals and a number of other birds and mammals. The most northern major island in the Galapagos, at one time Isla Pinta had a thriving tortoise population. The island's vegetation was devastated over several decades by introduced feral goats, thus diminishing food supplies for the native tortoises. A prolonged effort to exterminate goats introduced to Pinta was completed in 1990, and the vegetation of the island is starting to return to its former state.
The elongated island of Pinta is the northernmost of the active Galapagos volcanoes. Pinta is a shield volcano with numerous young cones and lava flows originating from NNW-trending fissures.
On January 28, 2008, Galapagos National Park official Victor Carrion announced the killing of 53 sea lions (13 pups, 25 youngsters, 9 males and 6 females) at Pinta, Galapagos Islands nature reserve with their heads caved in. In 2001 poachers killed 35 male sea lions.
Famous quotes containing the word island:
“I suggested to them also the great desirability of a general knowledge on the Island of the English language. They are under an English speaking government and are a part of the territory of an English speaking nation.... While I appreciated the desirability of maintaining their grasp on the Spanish language, the beauty of that language and the richness of its literature, that as a practical matter for them it was quite necessary to have a good comprehension of English.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)