The Mighty Tortuga

[lokheed]

So, yesterday as I was backing out of the driveway I discovered that a large gopher tortoise had decided to take a nap under my car. Fortunately I did not run over him as I was backing up, although he appears to have been partially crushed at some point in the past as there is some damage to his shell in the front. I didn't want to leave him out in the middle of the driveway, so I carefully picked him up and moved him to the hedges in front of our house under the dining room window. Gopher tortoises are an endangered species and protected by law in the state of Florida. The law is very specific in that you are not allowed to relocate or interfere with a gopher tortoise in any way. If you see one in a dangerous situation like a roadway, you are supposed to move them to safety as close as possible to where you found them. Apparently relocating them any distance at all is actually very dangerous to their health.

So anyway, I halfway expected him to be gone by the time I got back home. I was pleasantly surprised to see him still hanging out in our shrubbery several hours later. Since then he has moved around a bit, and for a little while this afternoon he actually came out onto our porch and then started knocking on our door. I kid you not. He was up on his hind legs, leaning into the door, and repeatedly banging on it with his beak.



So, I have started calling him The Mighty Tortuga, and apparently he lives in our hedge. Who knows how long he will stick around. Apparently we are not allowed to even feed him, although I gather that being a herbivore he can survive just fine munching on our lawn. I expect at some point he will wander away again. Given his size, and given that a tortoise only grows about 1 inch per year, he is probably almost 20 years old, maybe more. He seems to have done a fine job taking care of himself so far, so I suppose he will be fine in the long run.

Comments

[damashita.livejournal.com]

That is so bloody incredible! Thank you for sharing the story and the pictures. :)

[(Anonymous)]

When I was a kid, we had a tortoise, that my Dad had....uh.....imported from the Mojave Desert.

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He was the topic of many show-n-tell between my Brother and I. Only problem was, the walk to and from school took a helluva lot longer on those days! :rimshot: Heh! Ummmm...anyway..

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He managed just fine in the Seattle climate, we kept him in the basement, and fed him mostly lettuce. He would sleep by the furnace to keep warm, and in the winter would into at least a partial hibernation. On the nicer, warmer days, we'd let him outside to graze in the grass. So yes, the one in your yard is probably doing just fine for food, as long as there is plenty of grass for him to munch on.

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In order to keep track of him in tall grass, and/or if he managed to get a distance away, my Dad drilled a hole, in his shell, down near the left rear leg, (not going into any part of his flesh, of course, and thus not causing any pain or damage) and put a metal ring through it. We would then clip on a piece of rope, that was intertwined with newspaper, and that's what made it easy to spot him, as it dragged along behind him. That came in especially handy, when we moved to Silverdale, and would let him explore the field next door, that was full of tall grass.

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In 1973, my Step-Mom, had my then newly married Step-Sister and her husband drop "Tort" of in the desert in Arizona, on their way to moving there.

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There was a recent posting, on the West Seattle Blog, about two tortoises that were found about 1/2 mile from where I live. I made the lame comment, as most of my comments and puns are, :P that one of them was mine, and that apparently he now had a wife, and they were seeking me out, and that 35 years was probably just about right for them to walk from the Arizona desert, back to West Seattle.

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miws