The Daily Populous Sunday December 28th, 2025 morning edition
Authored by bbc.com and submitted by Dr_Neurol

Freed from the threat of invasive predators, Galapagos birds are performing astonishing feats of return and innovation – 200 years after Charles Darwin visited the archipelago.

For almost 200 years, the Galapagos rail had been missing from Floreana. Thought to be extinct on this small, inhabited island in the Galapagos archipelago, the shy, near-flightless bird is still found on some of the other islands. But Charles Darwin was the last person to record a sighting of one on Floreana, when he famously visited the island in 1835.

This year, after the removal of rats and feral cats from Floreana, the bird stunned conservationists by making a surprise re-appearance on the island. How the lost bird returned is a mystery. Other threatened birds have also recovered, and some are even singing new tunes never heard on the island before, which you can listen to below. The change reveals new insights into how a safer, almost predator-free environment can allow animals to experiment and innovate, scientists say.

"The Galapagos rail was one that I was not expecting at all," agrees Paula Castaño, a wildlife veterinarian who works for Island Conservation, one of the organisations restoring Floreana. "It just showed up" on Floreana, she says, adding that perhaps it had clung on as a small, hidden, unnoticed population all this time.

"[The rails] reappeared and now it's very common to find these birds just walking around the island. You can hear it, you can see it, it's unbelievable," says Paola Sangolquí, a marine biologist at the Jocotoco Conservation Foundation, which is also part of the restoration project.

Teaselkakanui on December 28th, 2025 at 05:40 UTC »

Lovely.

AndSomehowTheWine2 on December 28th, 2025 at 00:56 UTC »

This article was so beautiful, especially the end, talking about how when the young are safe and not threatened by danger, they are able to be bold and express themselves and creatively try new things, which ends up benefiting the community as a whole.

LittleKahuna007 on December 28th, 2025 at 00:21 UTC »

Every animal that is making a comeback, trying to reestablish its species, deserves our wholehearted support.