Family Cleans House, Finds Pet Tortoise Missing Since 1982

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Nixxy

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RE: TORT FOUND ALIVE AFTER 30 YEAR LOCK UP

Tortus said:
terryo said:
Someone wants their 15 min. of fame maybe.

That about sums it up. People in 3rd world countries are notorious for making up insane stores to get on the news. I guess life is really that boring. A girl who cries diamonds. The virgin mary statue that cries blood. A tortoise living in box for 30 years survives...

All the same.

I remember that story about the virgin Mary. Same category of far fetched, imo. I don't remember the story behind it (Was it paint,candle wax,etc?) but it screamed "prank" / hoax to me.
 

mctlong

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RE: TORT FOUND ALIVE AFTER 30 YEAR LOCK UP

Apparently, the neighbors found the tortoise on a box on the curb . The box on the curb came from the storage room. My cynical mind says that the neighbors or someone close to the family dropped the tortoise in the box as a joke and the family believed it was their long lost tortoise. :)
 

brittaniwray

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srod

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RE: Tortoise lost for 30 years found in shed?

lived off termites and no water?
sounds odd to me.
 

Moozillion

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RE: Tortoise lost for 30 years found in shed?

Nope. I ain't buying it.
 

Rover15

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RE: Tortoise lost for 30 years found in shed?

Sounds iffy to me that tortoise who was left in a room for 30 years is in better shape then tortoises kept by people who trust pet stores I don't know about that one
 

Shannon and Jason

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RE: Tortoise lost for 30 years found in shed?

The only way that would be remotely possible would be if there was a hole in the roof of the storage room for water to come in and there would need to be a ton of rodents that it could feed off of but if it was in the box for 30yrs no theres no way they may of found an empty shell but not a live and healthy looking tort as what they showed besides it being dirty I couldn't see anything wrong with it.
 

Kerryann

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RE: TORT FOUND ALIVE AFTER 30 YEAR LOCK UP

I saw that on facebook and was all wigged out. I couldn't believe it could be true. That would be too much suffering for any animal.
 

Terry Allan Hall

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RE: Tortoise lost for 30 years found in shed?

One person speculated that perhaps the father had been feeding it...still, seems extremely unlikely. :p
 

MikeCow1

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RE: TORT FOUND ALIVE AFTER 30 YEAR LOCK UP

I don't believe it. No shell deformation, the claws would probably be abnormally long if trapped in a box, etc..
 

Clementine

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RE: TORT FOUND ALIVE AFTER 30 YEAR LOCK UP

Well think of it this way, a father passes away...his family is cleaning out his home and clinging to what is left of him. They find a tortoise (maybe the tortoise walked into the dilapidated storage room looking for a snack or a cozy nap) and it reminds them of the tortoise they had as a child. Instantly their fathers memory is alive. The tortoise (regardless if it the real tort they had or not...I'm guessing not) is a living link to their father. If they truly do believe this is their tort, and aren't looking for anything else, then it is a sweet story. I don't think any tort would survive that long, so I'm sure this isn't the original tortoise...but, if they look at this tort as being something their father loved, even if it isn't the same one - hopefully it will be cherished for the rest of its life. If it brings someone happiness to believe in Santa Claus and it isn't harming anyone or any tort, I'm all for it.
 

TortoiseWorld

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RE: TORT FOUND ALIVE AFTER 30 YEAR LOCK UP

Well what happened was this Redfoot was abducted by space aliens then after 30 years he was returned because there wasn't enough room on their spaceship. :p
 

african cake queen

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RE: TORT FOUND ALIVE AFTER 30 YEAR LOCK UP

possible? maybe , if you're eddie munster.
 

jpo_tx113

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Family pet found after 30 years

http://www.treehugger.com/natural-s...t-tortoise-went-missing-30-years-earlier.html



Back in 1982, the Almeida Family was saddened to learn that their beloved pet, Manuela, a young red-footed tortoise, had gone missing. Their house was under renovation at the time, so the family just assumed that the slow-moving animal had slipped out through a gate left open by the construction crew -- disappearing into the forest near their home in Realengo, Brazil. But they couldn't have been more wrong.

The true fate of their lost pet remained a mystery for the next 30 years, that is, until recently....
 

GeoTerraTestudo

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Got this one from the Tortoise Forum Facebook Page. Wow!

Family Cleans House, Finds Pet Tortoise Missing Since 1982

Stephen Messenger
Science / Natural Sciences
February 4, 2013

It's no secret that tortoises are among the most resilient animals on Earth, perfectly adapted for life in natural environments that others would find inhospitable. But for one particularly tenacious pet tortoise, that hardy sense of survival allowed it to endure for decades in the most unnatural of places.

Back in 1982, the Almeida Family was saddened to learn that their beloved pet, Manuela, a young red-footed tortoise, had gone missing. Their house was under renovation at the time, so the family just assumed that the slow-moving animal had slipped out through a gate left open by the construction crew -- disappearing into the forest near their home in Realengo, Brazil. But they couldn't have been more wrong.

The true fate of their lost pet remained a mystery for the next 30 years, that is, until recently.

Earlier last month, after their father Leonel passed away, the Almeida children returned to help clean out his cluttered storage room upstairs. As it turns out, Leonel was somewhat of a horder, so the room was jam-packed with things that he had found on the street, like broken televisions and furniture. Deciding it was mostly junk, the family set about moving it to the trash out front.

But while son Leandro Almeida was making a trip to the dumpster with a box of broken records, a neighbor asked him if he was intending to throw out the tortoise that was holed up inside.

"At that moment I was white and did not believe," Leandro told Globo TV.

That's when the Almeidas learned that, amazingly, the hardy turtle had managed to survive three decades in storage.

The family suspects she had been able to sustain herself grubbing on termites which, thanks to all that unwanted furniture, was likely in abundance. And although she seemed to be surviving just fine in the dank confines of the storage room, Manuela is no doubt pleased (in her own tortoisey way) to be reunited with the family that had so long thought her gone forever.

But in the end, it's hard not to be impressed with the resiliency of life and the slow-and-steady approach to survival taken by tortoises -- both in living with us, and perhaps sometimes in spite of it.

Please note, the photos show a red-footed tortoise, though not the actual one from the story, as that image was not available to us.

Via Globo

http://www.treehugger.com/natural-s...t-tortoise-went-missing-30-years-earlier.html
 

Madkins007

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In the articles I have read on this, I noticed that the person carrying the box out did not see anything in it, but the junk man did. There is no solid information about how much time passed between putting the box at the curb and the junk person seeing the tortoise- it is hard to believe it happened in a short time (carried box out, set it down, junk guy immediately picked it up and saw tort???)

Also note that this happened in Brazil, in a town in the natural range of red-foots, and a place where they are both a common pet and a common released animal in neighborhoods.

Let's change the story a bit... A family in Pennsylvania was clearing out the attic and someone saw an Eastern box turtle in one of the boxes outside, the same species as a family pet from 30 years ago!

Now- in that story, what would you suspect happened- a trapped turtle was finally released, or a wild or released turtle got into a box?

The ONLY way I would believe that the tortoise in the original story IS the 30-year missing pet is if there was a photo of the pet and characteristics could be matched up correctly.
 

Terry Allan Hall

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RE: TORT FOUND ALIVE AFTER 30 YEAR LOCK UP

Clementine said:
Well think of it this way, a father passes away...his family is cleaning out his home and clinging to what is left of him. They find a tortoise (maybe the tortoise walked into the dilapidated storage room looking for a snack or a cozy nap) and it reminds them of the tortoise they had as a child. Instantly their fathers memory is alive. The tortoise (regardless if it the real tort they had or not...I'm guessing not) is a living link to their father. If they truly do believe this is their tort, and aren't looking for anything else, then it is a sweet story. I don't think any tort would survive that long, so I'm sure this isn't the original tortoise...but, if they look at this tort as being something their father loved, even if it isn't the same one - hopefully it will be cherished for the rest of its life. If it brings someone happiness to believe in Santa Claus and it isn't harming anyone or any tort, I'm all for it.

:cool:
 
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