MEMBERSHIP of Crediton and District Third Age Group for the retired or semi-retired costs £12 a year, and the organisation has “gone virtual” during these challenging times.  

This month Crediton U3A again held its monthly meeting by Zoom. It is likely this arrangement will continue for some time.

The guest speaker was the excellent and respected zoologist Liz Rogers, whose presentation title was “Voyage around the Galapagos Islands”.

Liz’s voyage had to be booked two years in advance as everything is very tightly controlled by the Galapagos Reserve, understandably. A small group of multi skilled individuals, including friends, went on a fascinating journey to see the unique aspects and animals of the Galapagos on a yacht called “The Beagle”.

There are 13 main islands that make up the Galapagos, a National Park and Marine Reserve, and one of the only places in the world where the animal inhabitants are unafraid of humans.

Liz showed us their route around the islands, and the mammals, birds and reptiles that live there. Some of these are specific to particular islands: for example, the flightless cormorant resides on Isabella and Fernandina.

Other birds include the Galapagos dove, crake and Floreana mockingbird. The Vampire ground finch (which apparently drinks the blood of other birds) is considered a very distinct subspecies of the sharp-beaked ground finch native to Wolf and Darwin Islands.

Liz’s group were extremely delighted to be able to swim with sea lions, sea turtles, sharks and marine iguanas.

However, a wet suit is recommended as the water is cold. Charles Darwin landed in the Galapagos in 1835 in the first Beagle, his comment being “nothing could be less inviting”, but of course from his observations on these islands he developed his “On the Origin of Species”, published on November 24, 1859, a work of scientific literature which is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology.

Unfortunately, Liz’s group could never have had enough time to sail their own Beagle and looking out for whales for as long as they would have liked.

Something that most people probably don’t know is that the Galapagos archipelago is one of 24 provinces that constitute the country of Ecuador.

It is home to around 30,000 people, spread across the five inhabited islands: San Cristobal, Santa Cruz, Isabela, Floreana and Baltra. Floreana was the first inhabited island because it had fresh water.

With human habitation came the inevitable introduction of mammals - goats, cats, pigs and – of course - rats and mice. It has been necessary to implement eradication programmes to protect the vulnerable indigenous species.

Questions from the appreciative audience surprisingly revealed that some U3A members have also been to the Galapagos.

Sandra Ragalsky