Galapagos Island Mammals

Wildlife photography in the Galapagos is different from most other locations because the animals are so much more approachable. Historically, they had very few or no natural predators so when humans arrived, the land animals had no reason the be wary of them. The other side of this is that because of the islands' location and relative isolation, species diversity of land mammals, birds and reptiles is quite low. In fact, there are no native mammals on the Galapagos that are not associated with the surrounding Pacific Ocean except for several species of bats and rice rats, none of which we observed. Diversity of aquatic mammals and other vertebrates, especially fish, is considerably higher.

Given that background, the only mammals species I successfully photographed were Galapagos Sea Lions and several marine species. We saw Galapagos fur seals but they were not abundant and difficult to locate because they frequented volcanic caves and other shorelines features that were difficult to traverse. Sea lions were abundant mostly everywhere we went, and they were not only very tame but often inquisitive, especially when we were snorkeling. They would often swim up to people snorkeling and playfully almost nudge them with their noses. When resting or sunning themselves on shore, they were oblivious to people around them. Many of the young pups were still nursing their mothers. Other young adults were often seen playing with each other. On several occasions while cruising, we encountered large groups or pods of Bottlenose Dolphins, many of which put on pretty impressive acrobatic shows. On a number of other occasions, we saw whales that we could not identify, but could have been one of a half dozen species that are found in the region.

The most exciting encounter we had on the trip was with an Orca. As I was heading to the upper deck one morning, I hear some excitement from several folks who were already there. There was a single probable young male Orca near one of of Zodiacs that was ferrying some snorkelers ashore. The Orca swam up along side the Zodiac, not more than 15-20 feet from it, and followed beside it for several minutes. At one point, it submerged, caught a sea turtle, and surfaced with the turtle in its mouth. It would certainly have been great to be one of the lucky folks in that Zodiac, but I consider myself fortunate to have been able to get some reasonable photo images of this exciting event. This Orca was probably about 30 feet long and weighed in the neighborhood of 12,000 pounds.