In 2015 I was standing by our garage door and looked down to see a tortoise at my feet. I doubted it was wild and had probably been someones pet whom had escaped.
I decided to take it so it wouldn’t wander out into the street. We never heard of anybody in the neighborhood losing a tortoise. Originally he explored our yard and got himself
into predicaments I had to extridite him from. The size of his horn indicated he was male and we estimated his age to be in his teens or twenties. I used to watch reruns of a
cartoon series called Tooter the Turtle. It was about a turtle who went to a wizzard asking him to send him on various adventures, He would always get into predicaments where
the wizzard had to rescue him. While climbing a mountain with my friend Mike we got into a slightly hairy situation. He cried out as a joke "Help Mr Wizzard I don't want to be
a mountain climber anymore" I knew where he had gotten that from. Rather than use tooter which sounded like a farter we decided on Tudor. He eventually outgrew his habit of
getting to where he needed rescue, mostly.
Tudor had a deformed shell and we thought maybe a dog or something had gotten hold of him when he was younger. We initially worried about our husky Mya. After her initial
contact with Tudor when he didn't run as prey or want to play Mya pretty much ignored him most the time. She even ignored him when he subletted the basement of her dog house.
He wasn't good at digging burrows, usually to close to the surface where they had a tendency to cave in. Jackie made him a couple he used. In November of 2015 someone gave us a
1.2 oz tortoise from their brood.We named it Jenner because you can't tell the sex until it gets to a certain age. It turned out to be Bruce and as he aged Tudor became more and
more agressive towards him.
For the first part of Jenner's life he and Tudor had little contact. When in the yard, Jenner lived in a protective enclosure because of the threat of ravens. As he grew
Tudor picked on him but Jenner would still seek him out. After about nine years Jenner became bigger than Tudor. Feeling his oats. he would sometimes start the confrontations. Jenner
had a bifricated horn where Tudors was thinner and able to lodge in places under Jenner's shell easier. After sticking by his head or one of his front arms Tudor would pick him up
and run with him. Often if he knocked Jenner on his back he would actually right him again on the next hit. A wild Totoise can die on his back if he can't right himself.
Some pictures of Jenner when he was young. The far right one was when he was about two years old. Jenner had a completely differnt personality then Tudor. You could pet his
extended head and he wouldn't even try to pull it in for protection. He liked being held and petted. He was a much more mellow turtle than Tudor. He liked eating mulberres from our
backyard tree and cactus flowers. Tudor would eat our grass where Jenner would not.
On November twenty first 20025 disaster struck. It doesn't take much rain in the desert to cause serious flooding. On that Friday morning Jackie woke me up to tell me the
turtles were gone, the burrow had collapsed and flooded. We dug frantically to try and rescue them and when we found them the we completely submerged in muddy water. Desert totoises
brumate in the winter. It sounds like a Aussie drinking buddy but is the reptile equivalent of hibernate. We didn't know how long they had been under water but their slowed metabalism
while in brumation must have saved them. They both came out alive.We boxed them in the garage so they could continue their winter brumation. Desert Totoises are prone to respitory
problems and Tudor always seemed to have a runny nose. A month latter he died in his box. There are probably 100s of pet desert totoises in town. Many more than in the surrounding
desert but no vet would treat him. Most only come to town occasionally but antbiotics for pneumonia might have saved him. We buried him in the backyard with large stones to keep
anything from digging him up. Five months after the flood Jenner was relesed from his box. He wandered the yard, ate some mulberries and went in his new reconstructed burrow.
He has a raspy breathing but I think he is going to make it.
Mya actually saved a desert Tortoise once. We were going to try and climb Cave Mountain near Afton Canyon but turned back. She reached the Jeep first and hid out in it's shade.
If she hadn't I wouldn't have noticed what else was using the shade behind my driver's side rear tire and would have backed over the wild tortoise. Recently the BLM closed off a large
portion of the Mojave Desert to off roaders because someone filed a lawsuit claiming they were killing desert tortoises with their sport. I do believe people are the reason they are
endangered but it's because of their encroachment. People bring trash and garbage to their expanding desert cities as well as more isolated areas with RVs and camping. Ravens follow
the humans and they kill the baby tortioses I rarely see wild tortoises anymore.
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