Producing ‘prehistoric’ life: Conservation breeding and the remaking of wildlife genealogies

Abstract

The giant tortoises of the Galápagos Islands, a species Charles Darwin called ‘antediluvian,’ are the focus of one of the world’s most successful conservation breeding programs. This paper explores the paradox of the breeding program, examining how ‘prehistoric’ life has been actively produced through nearly a century of work by scientists and conservationists dedicated to saving this endangered species. It traces the story of one giant tortoise, Diego, who was collected from the archipelago in the 1930s, lived in an colony at the San Diego Zoo for forty years, and returned to the Galápagos in 1977, where he became the star stud of the breeding program. I argue that the giant tortoises are not icons of a ‘pristine’ evolutionary history, but are the product of genealogies that enfold management practices in the bodies and bloodlines of wildlife. The paper focuses on the assemblages of reproduction at the center of these genealogies, drawing attention to the multiple agencies and spatialities that emerge in practices of experimentation – first at the zoo, where keepers struggled to keep the giant tortoise colony alive and healthy, and then in the Galápagos, where conservationists were eventually able to gain enough control over tortoise reproduction to standardize and replicate breeding practices. The case extends readings of conservation as a field of nonhuman biopolitics by attending to the production of wildlife itself as a strategy that facilitates the reproduction of conservation and tourism in the archipelago.