Gramma the Tortoise Dies After 140 Years on Earth

The San Diego Zoo said goodbye last week to its oldest resident, a Galápagos tortoise named Gramma who lived at least 140 years. Dubbed  “Queen of the Zoo,” Gramma came to San Diego sometime between 1928-31.

“It is astonishing to consider what Gramma lived through in her lifetime,” the San Diego Zoo writes on Facebook. “As the world around her experienced more than 20 US presidents, two World Wars, and two pandemics, she gently touched countless lives over nearly a century in San Diego as an ambassador for reptile conservation worldwide.”

Gramma was brought to San Diego by Charles Haskins Townsend, New York Aquarium’s first director, who had traveled to the Galápagos in either 1928 or 1931 (record-keeping was spotty) in an effort to save the species. Townsend sent tortoises to zoos across the country for breeding; eight ended up in San Diego, including Gramma. (Oddly enough, she was not part of the breeding program and did not have offspring of her own.)

Gramma was known as a “sweet, shy tortoise” who had a fondness for romaine lettuce and cactus fruit. Wildlife care specialists at the zoo were “monitoring her ongoing bone conditions related to advanced age” until they finally made the difficult decision to euthanize.

Of the 15 subspecies of Galápagos tortoises, three are extinct and the rest are vulnerable or critically endangered, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. There are an estimated 30,000 of the giant tortoises worldwide, with a third of them born in the captive-breeding program. More than 10,000 juveniles have been released in the wild over the past 60 years.

Photo credit: San Diego Zoo via Instagram