 | A fact from Aldabra appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 23 April 2013 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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I was just wondering why many of the islets were removed? --Maurice45 (talk) 20:19, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am surprised to see no mention of the campaign to prevent a runway being built on the island:
"He campaigned over the Falklands, over Westland, over Iraq, over Lockerbie, but he says that the campaign of which he is proudest was saving the pink-footed booby in 1967. A zoologist friend warned him that the RAF was planning to build a runway on the Indian Ocean island of Aldabra and that this would almost certainly kill off the pink-footed booby and the flightless rail, as well as making it impossible for the giant Aldabran tortoises to lay their eggs. Dalyell fired off 70 parliamentary questions and lobbied everyone he could think of. Nobody at Westminster seemed interested. But then he started lobbying friends in Washington and found that S Dillon Ripley, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, was passing through London. He went to see him in his hotel at midnight, and Ripley wrote immediately to Harold Wilson and promised to raise the matter with President Johnson the following week. Lyndon Johnson rang Wilson — “Hey, Harold, what’s all this about tortoises and boobies?” — and lo, the Aldabra runway was cancelled forthwith."
"The Importance of Being Awkward: The Autobiography of Tam Dalyell", Lynn Barber, Sunday Times, 14 August 2011 --Mais oui! (talk) 09:31, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The map showing the location of Aldabra isn't very helpful. A smaller scale (with Aldabra circled) would give a better impression of the location in relation to Africa and Madagascar. Tigerboy1966 07:20, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This statement is non-sensical. It seems to claim that the turtles survived the island submerging by surviving in the bushes. Any idea what it was supposed to say?
Fossil studies have revealed that the atoll was submerged about 175,000 years ago, destroying all the animals and plants, and that such events occurred many times and only the tortoise survived as they were camouflaged by the bushes of this atoll and also in view of its remoteness.
