Gramma, the Beloved Galapagos Tortoise, Passes Away
LOS ANGELES — Gramma, the oldest inhabitant of the San Diego Zoo and a cherished Galapagos giant tortoise, has died. She enjoyed a diet of romaine lettuce and cactus berries for over a century.
Zoo officials reported that Gramma was born in the wild and was approximated to be 141 years old. Her passing occurred on November 20th.
While the exact date of her arrival at the San Diego Zoo remains uncertain, it’s believed she came from the Bronx Zoo in either 1928 or 1931, as part of the first group of Galapagos tortoises.
Throughout the years, Gramma captivated visitors with her gentle, shy demeanor. Remarkably, she outlived two world wars and twenty American presidents.
Her caregivers affectionately referred to her as the “Queen of the Zoo.” Unfortunately, she had been dealing with age-related bone disease, which worsened recently, leading to her euthanasia.
Many zoo visitors took to social media, sharing how they had visited Gramma in their youth and later returned with their own children.
One visitor, Christina Park, now 69, reminisced about one of her earliest memories at the San Diego Zoo—riding on a turtle’s back at the tender age of three or four. Though such activities are no longer permitted, that experience inspired her to care for a small desert tortoise and delve into turtle conservation.
“It’s incredible how they’ve endured so much,” Park reflected. “And yet they’re still with us.”
In the wild, Galapagos tortoises can live more than a century, and in captivity, they can nearly double that lifespan.
The oldest known Galapagos tortoise, Harriet, lived to be 175 years old at Australia Zoo. She was taken from the Galapagos Islands in 1835, when she was about the size of a dinner plate, which suggests she hatched around 1830 and passed away in 2006.
The family of Galapagos tortoises comprises 15 subspecies found on the islands, with three currently considered extinct. The remainder are classified as vulnerable or endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Efforts have ramped up over the past few decades to breed these turtles in captivity, resulting in the release of over 10,000 juveniles into the wild since 1965. Some subspecies have even been brought back from the edge of extinction.
Notably, in April, four baby Galapagos tortoises were born to nearly 100-year-old first-time parents at the Philadelphia Zoo—marking a historic moment for the zoo. And in June, Zoo Miami’s Goliath, a resident Galapagos tortoise, welcomed his first offspring at the age of 135.
