Aldabra's giant tortoise comeback

Where it stands as of Oct 12, 2026

The Seychelles Islands Foundation and the University of Exeter estimated almost 183,000 adult and sub-adult giant tortoises on Aldabra Atoll from counts made between 2018 and 2022, the highest figure on record and the first update to the 100,000 figure cited since the late 1990s. The population looked relatively stable over those years, so the number is a new baseline, not a growth curve. Whether removing feral cats and black rats would lift the remaining limits on growth is not known.