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San Diego, California – Gramma, the San Diego Zoo’s beloved Galápagos tortoise and its oldest resident, has died at an estimated age of 141. Born in the volcanic wilds of the Galápagos Islands around 1884, Gramma’s life spanned from the presidency of Grover Cleveland to the age of smartphones and space tourism. She was humanely euthanized on November 20, 2025, after progressive bone deterioration associated with extreme old age made further treatment impossible. Her passing closes nearly a century of residence at the zoo, where she served as a quiet ambassador for one of Earth’s most iconic and endangered species.
Gramma arrived at the San Diego Zoo from the Bronx Zoo in either 1928 or 1931 as part of the institution’s very first group of Galápagos tortoises—an early conservation effort at a time when many island populations were plummeting due to invasive predators and habitat destruction. Already an adult when she arrived, she outlived her longtime companion Speed (who died in 2015 at approximately 150) and became the undisputed matriarch of the reptile collection. Keepers affectionately called her “the Queen of the Zoo,” delighting in her gentle, almost bashful personality and her predictable enthusiasm for romaine lettuce and cactus fruit.
News of her death prompted an outpouring of memories across social media. Generations of San Diegans recalled childhood visits—some even remembering the days when riding on a giant tortoise’s back was briefly allowed (a practice discontinued decades ago for animal welfare reasons). Cristina Park, now 69, described one of her earliest memories as a preschooler perched atop Gramma’s broad shell in the late 1950s. The experience inspired a lifelong interest in tortoises; Park later kept a desert tortoise as a pet and volunteered in local conservation programs. “Just how amazing it is that they managed to live through so much,” she said, “and yet they’re still there.”
Galápagos tortoises routinely exceed 100 years in the wild and can approach 200 in professional care. Gramma’s 141 years, while extraordinary, is not the species record. That distinction belongs to Harriet, a tortoise collected from the islands in 1835 (possibly by Charles Darwin himself) who lived to 175 at Australia Zoo before dying in 2006.
The 15 recognized subspecies of Galápagos tortoise have faced catastrophic declines since human arrival. Three are already extinct, including the Pinta Island tortoise, whose last survivor—Lonesome George—died in 2012. The remaining twelve range from vulnerable to critically endangered on the IUCN Red List, victims of introduced goats, rats, pigs, and historical harvesting by whalers for food.
Yet the story is no longer one of unmitigated loss. Intensive captive-breeding and island restoration programs have produced dramatic recoveries. Since 1965, more than 10,000 captive-reared juveniles have been released into the wild. The Española subspecies, reduced to just 15 individuals in the 1960s, now numbers over 2,000 thanks to the legendary breeding efforts of a single repatriated male named Diego (himself a former San Diego Zoo resident).
Recent milestones underscore the momentum. In April 2025, the Philadelphia Zoo welcomed its first-ever Galápagos tortoise hatchlings—four babies born to a 97-year-old first-time mother known as “Mommy.” By August, nine more had hatched, bringing the zoo’s total to 16 healthy offspring. In June 2025, Zoo Miami’s 135-year-old Goliath became a first-time father when a single hatchling emerged from an egg laid the previous January, earning the massive tortoise a dual celebration: his 135th birthday and his inaugural Father’s Day.
These successes stem from coordinated Species Survival Plans managed by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, careful temperature manipulation of eggs to influence sex ratios, and aggressive eradication of invasive species on the islands themselves. Goats have been removed from multiple islands, rats and pigs are being systematically eliminated, and native vegetation is rebounding—much of it fertilized and dispersed by the tortoises themselves.
Gramma never reproduced during her long tenure (her lineage remains in the wild populations from which she came), but her presence educated and inspired millions. In her final years she moved slowly through the shaded pools and sun-warmed rocks of the zoo’s Lost Forest exhibit, seemingly unaware of the smartphones pointed her way. To the staff who fed her daily salads and monitored her health, she was simply the Queen—steady, dignified, and timeless.
As the San Diego Zoo paid tribute with a ceremonial fruit-filled salad in her empty yard, visitors paused to reflect on a creature that had quietly witnessed two world wars, the moon landing, the internet, and twenty American presidents. In an era of rapid change and mounting extinction threats, Gramma’s life offered a powerful counterpoint: some things, with care and commitment, can endure.
Her reign is over, but the work she symbolized—slow, deliberate, and stubbornly hopeful—carries on in every hatchling now crawling across restored Galápagos soil.
