Human Error

Survivor guilt in the Anthropocene

Lonesome George, the last surviving Pinta giant tortoise, c. 2007.

By Jennifer Jacquet

In September 2014 I gathered at the American Museum of Natural History with scientists, journalists, and museum staff for the unveiling of the taxidermied body of Lonesome George, the last of the Pinta Island giant tortoises. I met George when he was an octogenarian and I was a twenty-year-old volunteer at the Charles Darwin Research…