Wapiti Tortoise Escapes, Makes It A Mile Uphill Before Jailbreak Is Discovered

How far will a tortoise stray from home? If it’s determined enough, at least a mile uphill, given the jailbreak of a fugitive tortoise in northwest Wyoming.

Wapiti resident Lisa Peterman was at home when she heard her dogs barking at something outside last weekend. Since a grizzly had been lurking in the area, she stepped outside to see what was causing the commotion.

“I saw what I thought was a tortoise,” she told Cowboy State Daily. “I couldn’t believe my eyes. So, I got my binoculars and looked again, and sure enough, it was a tortoise.”

No tortoises are native to northwest Wyoming, so Peterman assumed the tortoise was a missing pet. She called her neighbor, local veterinarian Ray Acker, who loaded the tortoise into a vehicle to return it to its owner.

“Sheldon,” the 10-year-old Sulcata tortoise, had been missing for over 24 hours. He was found a mile uphill from his Wapiti home.

“We've seen a wolf, bison, grizzlies, and cougars out here before, but never a tortoise,” she said.

Repeat Offender

When it comes to getting out of his outdoor habitats, Sheldon's a habitual offender. According to his owner, Wapiti resident and reptile breeder Sean Cooper, this is Sheldon's third escape.

“He's escaped once in Florida and twice here,” Copper said. “He was missing for two weeks in Florida, then somebody reported seeing a tortoise walk down the road, and that's how we found him in Florida.”

Sulcata tortoises are the third-largest species of tortoise in the world. Although they are an endangered species native to the southern edge of the Sahara Desert in Africa, they are popular pets in the United States.

Cooper was relieved to get Sheldon back. He and his neighbors were ardently searching for him when Peterman spotted him.

“We had the neighbors using their drones and other neighbors looking on their properties and adjacent properties while we were looking all over the BLM land next door,” he said. “But we were all looking in the wrong place because he went west, and he went high.”

It was at least a mile between Sheldon’s outdoor habitat and the spot where Peterman spotted him. Cooper was impressed by his tortoise’s tenacity.

“It blows my mind how far he had gone and how much he’d gone through,” he said. “He was a tank. He crawled through and did not stop. It was quite amazing.”

Owner Of A Lonely Heart

Several people in northwest Wyoming own sulcata tortoises. “Sweet Pea,” a male tortoise belonging to Cody resident Sabrina Hanson, was found feasting on a neighbor’s lawn after escaping Hanson’s backyard and traveling several blocks away in July.

Cooper has two sulcata tortoises, Sheldon and a female named Shelly, that live with his family in Wapiti. The tortoises spend the colder months indoors but spend the entire spring and summer outdoors in a specially built habitat.

Sulcatas tend to be stubborn and curmudgeonly by their very nature. However, Cooper said there’s only one time of year when Sheldon goes rogue.

“It only happens during breeding season,” he said. “September and October are his breeding months, and he just loses his mind. It’s like the deer out here – that's all they're programmed to do.”

Right before Sheldon escaped, Cooper had separated his two tortoises. That pushed Sheldon over the edge and over the barricade of large boulders surrounding his outdoor habitat.

“We still cannot figure out how he got out because there was nothing disturbed,” Cooper said. “He had been living outside from spring up until the time that he escaped. He must’ve climbed up over the boulder to get out.”

Cooper believes Sheldon was seeking his fortunes elsewhere, hoping to find another stray sulcata wandering around Wapiti. Given the circumstances, nobody’s taking it personally.

“I think he was trying to find something else,” Cooper said. “He was frustrated and separated from Shelly and wanted to get out and see if he could find somebody else. That's the only thing that comes to mind.”

Cold Comfort

When Acker brought Sheldon home, Cooper said his tortoise seemed happy to be back.

“He drank water, ate food and went to bed,” he said. “We could tell he was relaxed when he got home, and we were overjoyed and ecstatic that we got him back.”

During Sheldon’s absence, Cooper grappled with the possibility that he’d never see his tortoise again. Not only does a sulcata tortoise blend in with the sea of sagebrush surrounding Wapiti, but Sheldon would have died had he been outside much longer.

“We were very, very afraid that we weren't going to find him,” he said. “That night got pretty cold, so he probably found somewhere to hunker down, and it warmed up to the upper 70s the next day, which gave him the energy to keep going.”

Sulcata tortoises are diggers, digging burrows to shelter themselves. Cooper doesn’t think Sheldon would have been able to burrow deep enough to survive, and it would only be a matter of time before he succumbed to Wyoming’s winter weather.

The same weather patterns that have exacerbated a devastating fire season probably saved Sheldon’s life.

“He would not have made it,” Cooper said. “The ground here is way too rocky and dense to burrow, and he would have had to have burrowed six to eight feet to survive a winter out here. There’s no way he could’ve done it, so we’re very lucky to have gotten him back.”

House Arrest

Sheldon and Shelly have reunited while Cooper prepares his tortoises for the winter. The tortoises will spend the winter indoors under vitamin D lamps to ensure they get enough heat and helpful energy.

After Sheldon’s third escape, he’ll be spending the rest of his life "under house arrest." Cooper is taking steps to ensure he can run but can’t hide if he should ever escape again.

“We bought some GPS air tags, and we’re going to attach them to their shells,” he said. “Had I not separated them, he wouldn't have escaped. But if he ever escapes again, we can use the GPS to locate him. He’ll have his ‘ankle bracelet’ on.”

Cooper hopes Sheldon’s saga will be a cautionary tale for anyone considering acquiring a sulcata tortoise for a pet. In addition to the dietary responsibilities, expenses, maintenance, and “tortoise-proofing” required to be a good tortoise owner, the slow-moving and seemingly slow-witted reptiles should never be underestimated.

“People get them as golf ball-sized little babies in the pet trade, but they don’t realize, once they start to get huge, how much of a responsibility they really are,” he said. “They require a lot of space to roam, and you have to build an escape-proof area with enough space to keep them happy.”

Sheldon and Shelley will spend next spring and summer in a larger outdoor enclosure Cooper’s planning to build for them. But even with more space and enhanced security, he won’t be underestimating his tenacious tortoise again.

They’re amazing animals,” he said, “But when they’re determined, they will not stop.”

Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.