Human Impacts
Humans have had many impacts on the Galapagos Islands. To start with, people have been flooding in from the mainland to find work at the Galapagos Islands, while depleting the natural resources, and throwing away garbage and burning it carelessly. Every 11 years the population doubles. In 1990 the population was marked at 9,735. Today the population is more than 25,000, and it is estimated, the population by 2014 will be 40,000 people. Another thing is that tourists have increased. The amount of tourists in the sixties was about 1,000 people. Then in 2001 the amount of tourists was about 80,000 people. From this, there is an increase in garbage being thrown away, and the pollution from the motor yachts. They also have had to build more airstrips to support the amount of tourists flying in. Also, over fishing and illegal fishing have been a growing problem. It also effected the population of shark fin, black coral, lobster, sea cumber, and sea horse. They had to pass a law that you can not fish sea cumber because of all the over fishing. Also, humans bringing new introduced species to the Galapagos Islands have been having drastic effects here. The goats have become over populated and could be the cause of four extinct vegetations. Feral dogs have become threatening to tortoise eggs, native iguanas, and penguins. A new wasp species has been decreasing the caterpillar larva which the finches use as a food source. Lastly, 50% of vertebrate species are still considered endangered, as well as 24% of plants because of human activity that happened in the past at the Galapagos Islands. These are some of the impacts humans have had.