Mareike Schadach

Tortoises on the Galapagos Islands were subject to extensive overexploitation for food by sailors and settlers in the 18th and 19th centuries. Today, populations are threatened by invasive species, habitat loss, poaching and the illegal wildlife trade. Conservation programs like conservation breeding and reintroduction are showing great success, and the tortoise populations are slowly recovering.

One of the most amazing natural spectacles that has always fascinated us humans can be observed around Linum, a small village near Berlin: the migration of cranes to their wintering grounds. Several tens of thousands of these beautiful birds stop over in this very special area every year.

Southern Resident Orcas are one of three orca ecotypes found in the Salish Sea. Unlike the so-called Transient and Offshore Orcas, they feed primarily on Chinook Salmon. But salmon stocks have declined dramatically in recent decades. Since 2005, Southern Resident Orcas have been considered endangered.

Around 30 free-ranging Blue Peacocks live on Peacock Island in Berlin. They are descendants of the peacocks that King Frederick William II brought to the island in 1795. Those peacocks formed the basis for a menagerie on the island. More than 800 exotic animals once lived on the little island in lake Wannsee. Later, in the year 1842, most of them were handed over in to the newly founded Berlin Zoo.