Wandering tortoise reunited with local family
This is an epic story, the tale of a trek played out very
very
slowly.
Tina Turtle wandered through an open gate at the home of Curtis
and Terry Moran four years ago, and went upon a ramble that took
her to a spot four miles away, where she was found and, through a
series of coincidences, she returned to the Morans.
Wandering tortoise reunited with local family
This is an epic story, the tale of a trek played out very
very
slowly.
Tina Turtle wandered through an open gate at the home of Curtis and Terry Moran four years ago, and went upon a ramble that took her to a spot four miles away, where she was found and, through a series of coincidences, she returned to the Morans.
Tina is actually a tortoise, not a turtle. She’s adapted to terrestrial life, and her natural pace is, well, stately. Thus the mile-per-year average speed over the last four years.
Tina is a family pet, and not the first tortoise to call the Morans’ family home its own. When she disappeared, “we looked everywhere and we couldn’t find her,” said Terry Moran, who with her husband, Curtis, operates the Family Pet Care Center veterinary practice on East Street in Hollister.
She may not know it, but Tina is a fine specimen of the reptile known scientifically as Chelonoidis chilensis, commonly referred to in English as a Chaco tortoise. The species is native to South America.
Tortoises, if cared for properly, typically live long lives, but the Morans have no idea how old Tina is.
Tina came to the veterinary office originally because she was not doing well, Terry Moran said.
“That’s how I know it’s her,” she said. “She was malnourished when we got her. She was on too high of a protein diet.”
The diet caused the platelets in her shell to develop too rapidly, forming layers of shell climbing into pyramid-like structures.
A few months ago, a visitor came to the office, which the Morans make available as a dropoff center for the Nan Pipestem Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, which is at a remote location off Panoche Road.
Tina and her family were reunited. The visitor had found her near Union and Valley View roads.
Stranger still, a subsequent visitor recognized the nomadic tortoise.
“We had a client in and we were showing her around, and she said ‘I saw her two years ago in the [San Benito] River,'” Moran said.
They believe the tortoise dined on the crops grown on the farms that line the edges of the river wash. The newer growth on her shell looks healthy, the product of her healthy foraged diet, Moran said.
The family is amazed that Tina did not fall victim to a stray dog, coyote or automobile during her ramble.
To the uninitiated, a land tortoise might seem a little, well, inscrutable. But the tortoise clearly responds to Moran’s voice and presence.
Visiting a quiet corner of the garden behind the veterinary center, the tortoise moved toward Moran across the lawn. “I never would have guessed that turtles could have so much personality,” Moran said. Tina even waits near the back door of the clinic when she hears familiar voices inside.
While she probably hibernated in a burrow during the winters of her wandering, that long winter’s nap is hard on tortoises, since it can exhaust their reserves.
The Morans bring Tina in when the weather starts to get cold. She likes to bask near the fireplace. And because no one has figured out how to house train a tortoise, Tina wears a diaper during her winter housestay.
This time, Tina isn’t going anywhere.
