Galapagos Islands talk for Parkinson's members (From Watford Observer)

Galapagos Islands talk for Parkinson's members

11:02am Monday 12th January 2009 in Parkinson’s Disease Society

In spite of the bitter cold weather a large audience attended the monthly meeting of the West Herts Parkinson’s Branch on Thursday, January 8, at St Thomas’ Church, Langley Road, Watford, to see and hear the guest speaker, naturalist and photographer John Britten’s slide show on “The Galapagos Islands“.

Unfortunately the heating in the hall was totally inadequate causing the audience to keep muffled up in their coats and scarves throughout the evening. It was only John Britten’s interesting slide show that made up for the discomfort.

After being introduced by Chairman Mike Peaker and overcoming a certain amount of microphone trouble, John began by giving an outline of the geographical location of the Islands. They are volcanic and are situated in the eastern Pacific Ocean 604 miles from the mainland of Ecuador, straddling the Equator and consisting of 13 main islands, 6 smaller ones and numerous rocks and inlets. The small flat island of Baltra was established as a U.S. Air Force Base during World War 11 providing protection for the Panama Canal. The facilities were eventually handed over to the Ecuador Government and today it is now an Ecuadorian military base. Although there are two airports serving the Galapagos, Baltra is the only one with facilities for planes overnight.

The survey ship “Beagle” came to the Islands in 1835 to survey approaches to the harbours. On board was a young naturalist, Charles Darwin, who made a scientific study of geology and biology on the islands from which formed the beginning of his controversial “Origin of the Species”. In the book’s centenary year, 1959, the Ecuadorian government declared 97.5% of the Archipelago’s land area a national park. During his talk, John Britten showed slides of his holiday tour of the islands including one of the American built airport runway laid over volcanic rock and also coloured slides of the many species of indigenous birds such as the Blue-footed Booby, popular among visitors for their large blue feet that they show off during courtship, the Waved Albatross, the Galapagos Hawk, Cormorant and Darwin’s finches. Animals have right of way on footpaths proved by a slide showing 2 Seals lying in the middle of the path with the human onlookers having to walk round them. Ferenandina Island is home to hundreds of Marine Iguanas that gather largely on black lava rocks, Lava Lizards, Penguins, Pelicans and Sea Lions plus varied species of birds. .

Galapagos means Saddle, an old Spanish word, The large Galapagos Tortoise has a back that resembles an old Spanish saddle and is only found on the islands, hence the name John Britten finished his show and after a question and answer session sat down to great applause from a frozen audience trying to keep their hands warm. A break was taken for refreshments, to give out notices and have the usual raffle. There was little response from the question in the newsletter re a day centre. Up-date on the PDSN is that head office has advertised the position once more and possibly interviewing a candidate shortly. The Chairman concluded the meeting by reminding people that the next monthly meeting is the AGM on 5th February 7.30pm.

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