Going Out

By Ed Wesely

Looking for a home

	TRR photo by Ed Wesely Our tortoise friends just before we transferred them to a new guardian near Milton, PA on October 5. (Click for larger image)

It’s hard enough being a turtle in the modern world, let alone becoming a captive one to live at the sufferance of others in a box or basement pen.

But that’s too often the outcome if you’re traded back and forth as a “pet.” And it will increasingly be the fate of turtles as open space is developed into homes and parking lots and as their kind becomes scarcer and more “valuable.”

Even so, with the information available on the Internet, we humans have a wonderful opportunity to learn about the biology of these and other “pets” and, with a little effort, to recreate true homes for them—as I discovered by chance this summer.

The first week of July a friend who was moving to California called about two pet tortoises that she couldn’t take along. Accordingly, the next afternoon I picked up the tortoises and a bag containing their heat lamp and a package of romaine lettuce, a staple of their diet.

At home, the first thing I decided to learn was why Sandra had called them “tortoises.” Why not “terrapins?” Or just “turtles?”

Opening a dictionary, I discovered that “turtle” is appropriate for their entire shelled tribe and that “terrapin” is reserved for “fresh or brackish water turtles.” “Tortoise” generally refers to land- dwelling species, such as our familiar box turtle.

And thanks to the Internet, we learned that our charges were Sulcata tortoises, native to African grasslands south of the Sahara Desert. Their grazing habits became apparent during the summer when they browsed the clover and other grasses in their pen and in the meadow where we exercised them.

Walking was no problem. If we turned our backs too long or forgot to secure their pen, the little male would disappear. Once he was gone for five days, and another time he resurfaced in a neighbor’s driveway half a mile across our meadow.

The big female was also active, but more single-minded about browsing. When allowed to roam in the yard she inevitably headed toward the barn. Children who visited loved to track both “torts,” walking and crawling after them, then picking them up and returning them when they’d strayed too far.

Quite soon, what I’d thought of as obliging a friend had developed into genuine admiration and affection. And tinged with sadness, too, when I realized that we couldn’t keep our friends after the summer.

Because they require very warm temperatures, even in July we’d bedded the torts in the kitchen, in a large box lined with straw. Rainy days also kept them there, except for playtime to explore the kitchen. But we had no other quarters to serve them during the cold months, probably until May.

So on October 5, we bit the bullet and drove south a few hours to transfer them to a man who had the proper facilities to care for them.

What I understood in the bittersweet moment when we gave them up was that the torts were emblems of summer, of fresh clover and the shouts of the children who admired them. Far from being aliens, their own simple gifts had touched the hearts of many.

And I fancied, too, that I’d be waiting and listening on winter afternoons for the soft tap-tap of tortoise feet in the kitchen.