It's tiring, even deadening to hear the same words over and over again ("threatened," "endangered," "facing extinction") and not resent the stubborn stupidity of those who pretend deafness in order to go on breeding and imposing on the globe their gross superstition. Stewards of the earth, kicked out of the garden, resent the place from where they came. And twin to this selfish grudge is greed; that's why fishermen "with no other option" enjoy anti-conservationist notoriety--the Simon Peters of ecological ignorance (if only they would follow Jesus away from their boats). If God created the earth, they seem to believe, he made it for them to exploit. One current creationist conspiracy underway in the Galapagos pits disciple against evolution. Do men who worship fish intend to crush Darwin by eliminating the source of his epiphany? It isn't just geriatric tortoises that lose their beach property. The legendary uniqueness of the archipelago must fight two millenia of holier-than-thou fruitful excess, not to mention corrupt officials--the direct descendents of Catholicism's founders--with a sovereign entitlement to invade and pillage as usual. Is it something in the genes, passed down from generation to generation? I suppose not.