[11] He was relocated for his own safety to the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz Island, where he spent his life under the care of Fausto Llerena, for whom the tortoise breeding center is named.

[6] Until January 2011, George was penned with two females of the species Chelonoidis niger becki (from the Wolf Volcano region of Isabela Island), in the hope his genotype would be retained in any resulting progeny.

[19] On January 20, 2011, two individual C. n. hoodensis female partners were imported to the Charles Darwin Research Station, where George lived.

[20] On June 24, 2012, at 8:00 A.M. local time, Galápagos National Park director Edwin Naula announced that Lonesome George had been found dead by Fausto Llerena, who had looked after him for forty years.

[24] The body of Lonesome George was frozen and shipped to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City to be preserved by taxidermists.

The Ecuadorean government wanted the taxidermy to be shown in the capital, Quito, but the Galápagos local mayor said Lonesome George was a symbol of the islands and should return home.

[28] On February 17, 2017, Lonesome George's taxidermy was flown back to the Galápagos Islands, where it is currently on display in the Fausto Llerena Breeding Center.

They estimated that the population of C. n. abingdonii had been declining for the past one million years and identified lineage-specific variants affecting DNA repair genes, proteostasis, metabolism regulation and immune response as key processes during the evolution of giant tortoises via effects on longevity and resistance to infection.