A landmark count has put roughly 180,000 Aldabra giant tortoises on one Seychelles atoll, the highest figure ever recorded for a species once driven near extinction.
Researchers with the Seychelles Islands Foundation and the University of Exeter analyzed five years of field counts taken from 2018 through 2022 and arrived at a best estimate of almost 183,000 adult and sub-adult tortoises living free on Aldabra Atoll. The population held relatively stable across that stretch, and the new total tops every prior mark for the species.
The New York Post reported the findings from a study published in the journal Ecology and Evolution. The last widely cited number, from the late 1990s, stood at about 100,000. In the 19th century, exploitation left fewer than 1,000 animals on the island.
Aldabra is one of only two places on Earth where giant tortoises still roam in the wild. The other is the Galapagos, where the population is much smaller. The tortoises on Aldabra now far outnumber the human population of the Seychelles.
Aldabra Atoll sits in the Indian Ocean as a strict nature reserve and became a UNESCO site in 1982. A long recovery effort followed the crash caused by 19th-century hunting and harvest. The new survey is the first solid update in a generation.
Dr. Frauke Fleischer-Dogley, CEO of the Seychelles Islands Foundation, tied the rebound to steady work rather than a one-off campaign.
"More than 180,000 giant tortoises roaming freely on our atoll is proof of what long-term commitment to conservation can achieve."
She called the result good news for Seychelles, for the wider world, and for the people who kept the atoll protected.
Counting the animals is hard. Thick vegetation hides large stretches of the atoll, so a raw headcount alone understates the true number. The team modeled unseen tortoises along with the ones crews actually spotted.
Dr. Nancy Bunbury, a study co-author, described why the method mattered.
"Aldabra’s giant tortoise monitoring programme is one of the longest running in the region, but the atoll’s dense vegetation makes counting tortoises genuinely difficult in places."
She said the model produced the most reliable baseline yet for the iconic Seychelles species, a benchmark managers can use for decades.
Dr. Dave Hudson, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Exeter in Cornwall, praised the field crews and then drew a hard line under the celebration.
"These results are great news for the tortoises and testament to the fantastic work done in the field."
Hudson stressed that the figure is a starting point, not a finish line. Climate pressure, longer droughts, less shade and food, rising seas on low ground, and invasive mammals still threaten the herd. Feral cats and black rats prey on eggs and hatchlings. Study authors say planned eradication of those invaders could remove a barrier to further growth.
Hudson put the practical job in plain terms: give managers the evidence to spot change early and act before the next slide.
From fewer than a thousand animals in the 1800s to a late-1990s estimate of 100,000, and now to nearly 183,000 adults and sub-adults, the arc is clear. Protected land, continuous monitoring, and honest baselines did the work. The same record shows the job is unfinished. Drought, sea-level rise, and predators on nests can erase gains if vigilance slips.
Wild giant tortoises survive in force in only two places. Aldabra now holds the largest free-roaming population on the planet, and the new count finally replaces a decades-old guess with a number managers can trust.
Real conservation looks like this: count what is there, protect the ground, remove the threats, and keep score for the long haul, not press releases without follow-through.
