This gives you an idea of the size of these creatures. Here is Marcus at Rancho Mariposa, a private farm in the highlands of Santa Cruz island. These giant tortoises migrate across this rancher's land to a freshwater source and also because the rancher's father planted the type of grass that the tortoises use as fodder. We must have seen 50 of these chelonians. The rancher was a kind but odd duck, born of American parents, who had sailed to the Galapagos in 1949 and homesteaded up in the hills. No animals were hurt in the making of this image.