Missing Russian Tortoise

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pistachio

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My Russian Tortoise, Pistachio, has been missing now for a little less than a week now. He escaped his outside pen. I know that Russian Tortoises like to burrow, particularly deeper than other tortoises, which is good and bad; he is probably not even off of my property, but he will be hard to spot. I have no fear that he will die of natural causes, or heat or cold. I have heard many stories of tortoises surviving for years and being found, in fact a friend of mine lost a tortoise when she was a child, and she found it one year later under one of her shrubs. I have given flyers to every house abutting mine, and some even past that. Now that I have the area secure, and I know he will survive, I only have two fears, both make me want to find him quickly. One, is the fear of raccoons and foxes, I do not want them to find my tortoise before I do. The second thing is that my friend grew up in California, so the weather was good all year round (and so her tortoise survived). However, I live in New England. If I don't locate him before the winter, he may die. I have looked online for how to trap a tortoise, all of the suggestions said "put a hole next to the tortoise with bait and get it to fall in." Well the problem here is that I don't know where my tortoise is, so I can't put a hole somewhere and hope he falls in. So I have a few questions. Do I need a trap? What kind of trap should I use? Would a raccoon trap work? What kind of bait should I use? Thank you so much! Please help!!! :D
 

Yvonne G

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Hi Ben:

The "awake" season for Russian tortoises in the wild is quite short. They go into hibernation earlier than we may realize. I'm thinking your tortoise is still in his pen, but dug down and getting ready to hibernate.

My suggestion is for you to get down on your hands and knees and go over every inch of the habitat with your fingers. Probe into the dirt until you find a really soft spot. Russian tortoises push the dirt behind them as they dig, covering up the hole, and without feeling the dirt to find where it is soft, you wouldn't be able to even know they had dug there.

Good luck in finding Pistachio. And, unless your winters are very wet, I think he'll survive quite well. We have members in the east who allow outside hibernation and the tortoises, under snow, do quite well.
 

dmmj

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watch when it rains, it will often bring them out (russians)
 
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