Curtis's latest escapade

Cathie G

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Just had some high school kid call me and tell me “hey sorry miss your tortoise is DEAD and all over the road” only for him to ask me when he went missing and then say “oh sorry ma’am I saw this 3 weeks ago”.

How hard is it for people to READ the info on all of the posters and every post everywhere I’ve made? Let alone read the description or, better yet, look at the picture??? People are calling me about every dead turtle they find even when they’re so obviously not Curtis, but not providing any information other than “hey I think I found your turtle, he’s dead” until I ask more questions. Had one at 1 am last night, and you bet it was hard to get back to sleep before I had to wake up for an 8 am class.

I feel a little bad about chewing him out, but this is the second time people have called me about that specific dead turtle, and he was quite obnoxious about it.

The day people learn the difference between a tortoise and a turtle is the day I can die at peace.
I know what you mean. But still don't give up hope. At least you can recognize when someone is being an idiot and doesn't even know the difference. At least the word is out and lots of people are looking maybe one of them will spot him and contact you. Best wishes hopes and prayers but I'd almost bet he's hanging around close and might be coming home everyday. They're hard to spot. I lose Sapphire everyday in an enclosure I know he can't escape from. 😘
 

Cathie G

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I know what you mean. But still don't give up hope. At least you can recognize when someone is being an idiot and doesn't even know the difference. At least the word is out and lots of people are looking maybe one of them will spot him and contact you. Best wishes hopes and prayers but I'd almost bet he's hanging around close and might be coming home everyday. They're hard to spot. I lose Sapphire everyday in an enclosure I know he can't escape from. 😘
I just saw that Curtis is a sulcalta but I still think unless you spot them waltzing down the street they hide really well in the sunshine. They probably do siesta during the really hot times.
 

OliveW

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Lol someone from my sister’s school just posted this View attachment 350367

I love the part where it says he can't swim so please don't drop him in a large body of water. lol

That is a legit problem in Florida! The poor gopher tortoises are always getting thrown in the ocean by tourists. Lots of them live in the dunes and for some ridiculous reason, people think they are sea turtles.

Some beaches literally have signs with photos of them saying to please stop throwing them in the ocean.
 

wellington

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I love the part where it says he can't swim so please don't drop him in a large body of water. lol

That is a legit problem in Florida! The poor gopher tortoises are always getting thrown in the ocean by tourists. Lots of them live in the dunes and for some ridiculous reason, people think they are sea turtles.

Some beaches literally have signs with photos of them saying to please stop throwing them in the ocean.
So very sad that people don't know the difference, ugh!
 

TechnoCheese

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I’m really thinking someone might’ve picked up Curtis and taken him with them or something. I’ve been searching all day to no avail, and my family has been looking every day after they get home. There’s been no info since the person who saw him on Monday, and they didn’t report seeing him until 2 days after. We also live next to a pretty rough neighborhood and a middle school is about a mile away. I’ve heard a lot from my sister who goes there, and a lot of the kids there are quite… something.

This morning some middle schooler called me to tell me they found my tortoise, he had a cracked shell, and they threw him into the lake. It sounded like an obvious prank call, so I hung up. After 4 hours of searching, I decided to text them and get more information just in case, and they described his color and size accurately, and said the crack was “a small crack on his ‘shell thing’”, which could describe one of his irregular scutes on the back of his shell. They said they put him in the pond at the apartment complex across the street from the middle school. They blocked me before I could get more information. I think they were lying and I’m pretty sure it would be really difficult for a middle schooler to carry a tortoise as large as Curtis all the way to that pond through a few gates, but it’s really worrying how accurately they described him. I went to the pond and it’s really dirty so I couldn’t see the bottom, and the sides are steep enough that if he wasn’t put in at a shallow spot, he might not have been able to get out. The school is a mile away, but it’s been 5 days since he was seen and it’s possible that he made it there.

I really don’t know where to go from here, besides putting more fliers out. I don’t know how so many people passed a tortoise walking along the sidewalk without reporting anything at all. It’s getting into the low 50s every night.
 

SinLA

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Put flyers up by the pond/middle school. "Reward for Information" rather than reward for his return. Maybe that will help get something...

I'm so very sorry
 

wellington

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Put flyers up by the pond/middle school. "Reward for Information" rather than reward for his return. Maybe that will help get something...

I'm so very sorry
You do a reward for information you will for sure get screwed out of the money. Not a smart idea.
A reward for his return will get anyone, specially in a bad neighborhood, to call if they had him.
All you can do is keep looking. Take in all info given to you without hanging up on people. Check out all info given, whether fishy or not.
 

TechnoCheese

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Good news, that middle schooler was indeed lying. Her friend who also tried to call me made the mistake of answering my text. They didn’t even try to corroborate their stories, and she even tried to convince me they were high schoolers. She finally admitted to it being a prank when I pointed out that the stories don’t match up. I also got this gem :p7B880F48-D433-4671-A9BD-5998323A9204.jpeg
 

Warren

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Good news, that middle schooler was indeed lying. Her friend who also tried to call me made the mistake of answering my text. They didn’t even try to corroborate their stories, and she even tried to convince me they were high schoolers. She finally admitted to it being a prank when I pointed out that the stories don’t match up. I also got this gem :pView attachment 350428
I can't understand why anyone would prank somebody by saying that, how whole they feel if they were pranks about a family member or pet of theirs.
 

TechnoCheese

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I can't understand why anyone would prank somebody by saying that, how whole they feel if they were pranks about a family member or pet of theirs.
I don’t know either, but middle schoolers will be middle schoolers, I guess. From my sister’s accounts, I get the feeling that they’re a pretty representative sample of the kids at that specific school. Hopefully I guilted them into becoming better people, because I sure tried.
 

wellington

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I can't understand why anyone would prank somebody by saying that, how whole they feel if they were pranks about a family member or pet of theirs.
Hopefully they have no pets. Real pet lovers would never do something like that. They probably would be pet abusers, the snot nosed rug rats!
 

Cathie G

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Good news, that middle schooler was indeed lying. Her friend who also tried to call me made the mistake of answering my text. They didn’t even try to corroborate their stories, and she even tried to convince me they were high schoolers. She finally admitted to it being a prank when I pointed out that the stories don’t match up. I also got this gem :pView attachment 350428
I'm so glad they admitted they are just plain butt heads.😉 That means there's hope. I've read of a large Tortoise being found by it's owner after a year or more loose in a large busy city near me. And other places too. The tortoise decided to visit home.😊
 
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