I agree more pic's those are great thanks for sharing 
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- Thread starter marithaven
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Hi! Thanks for the pictures they're great!
Hi Maritha:
I very much appreciate you posting your pictures for us to see. Your tortoises are beautiful. What do you do with your babies? Is it legal for you to allow them to be in the wild?
I very much appreciate you posting your pictures for us to see. Your tortoises are beautiful. What do you do with your babies? Is it legal for you to allow them to be in the wild?
Welcome, and awesome pics...thanks for sharing!!
Tom said:
Hallo Tom This picture is of giant tortoises... the small one next to them is not small.... it is a 10.9kg leopard aged +-25years old. They are in the Besters bird and animal park in Pretoria. They are huge, laze around 80% of the time and the appetites!!!!! Unfortunately as you can see on the photograph there is only sand in their pen and also lucern atop of that green grocers drop of tons of vegetables for them. In that park there are about 60 tortoises running around and if in their way they push your feet aside to get to where they want to be. We do have lovely tortoises in SA especially the geometric tortoise is beautiful to me. Tough to keep though. We went to Cape Town in February drove more than 1400km's Gordons bay-Kleinmond-Sandbaai-L'Agulhas and looking to see tortoises we did not come acrose one. Now i am wondering whether we went to the wrong places or are they thinning out.
Tom we have five batches of eggs in the ground, of both species. They will start hatching next year March April, hopefully before that. We are going to look into the exporting of the babies. It is legal to export from South Africa if you follow the procedures carefully. We must how ever get more info on that. A year is enough time to get everything into place.
The exporting prices are redicilous... Saw on internet some people asking up to 3800.00dollars for a 20cm baby. That is a lot of money so what we need to do is gather info on export cost carrier cost vetenarian cost and we will see to what it comes to and decide then if it is affordable for overseas buyers.
SA won' let you breed and sell in SA It is a pity because my feeling is here by us they are on thinning out and it is one of our most precious historic animals. If we don't breed -re sell or put back in the wild what will happen in a few years time? I hope they change their views on that topic so they can walk the earth for many more years.
I will definitely post pictures of them and our surrounding areas I am fascinated by other countries and states as well. Georgous places out there!
Neal said:
Hi there
They lay their eggs in batches. between 3 and 4 batches each per year each batch containing 5-8 eggs could go to 30 eggs per lady. Sometimes other birds like the Hadeda can puncture eggs is layed too shallow and ants is really a problem especially for hatchlings. We close up around the batches of eggs in a sirkel with small bird wire at the top-* Spray freqeuntly for ants. This will be our first year that we will be leaving the eggs to hatch. Previously it was taken away because of our laws in SA.
It breaks my heart to do that but you cannot do something that could put your tortoises in the line of being taken away. Suppose we are law abiding citizens. But definitely now wwe have seen the deminishing of our tortoise population and are going to do everything in our power to put some back in the wild and also other countries- Hope we succeed
Peacebone said:
Thank you kindly.
Yes they do look different to others i have seen in other places, wondering if Different temperatus, more rain, less rain, more humidity, different plants , soil etc could be the cause?
emysemys said:
Morning Yvonne
We are hoping to be able to get a breeding permit so that we can put some back in the nature reserves and also for pets to the tortoise lovers.
It is such a long process and must say that the employees at our permit offices are not too keen to give these permits or try and help. but knowing us we will eventually have that permit
I want to thank you for taking the time to keep answering on this thread, it is just so interesting to read! 
Welcome Maritha!
As you may have noticed we spend alot of time arguing about leopard tortoises on this forum. Many of us are very fascinated with them. It may be nice to have somebody around with first hand knowledge of them in their place of origin (well one place of origin at least).
Personally, I'd love all the details you can share, but don't even know where to start asking questions
For starters maybe, do you know where exactly those giants come from? Or are they just really old?
As you may have noticed we spend alot of time arguing about leopard tortoises on this forum. Many of us are very fascinated with them. It may be nice to have somebody around with first hand knowledge of them in their place of origin (well one place of origin at least).
Personally, I'd love all the details you can share, but don't even know where to start asking questions
For starters maybe, do you know where exactly those giants come from? Or are they just really old?
HOLY COW!!! (silly American expression)
I can't believe you actually have photos of exactly what I was talking about!!! Those are very similar to the giant one that I saw. They must be the same type from the same area.
I saw wild ones down at the Cape Point Preserve. I only saw around 6 of them over several days. That was in April and May of 2005 and it was still relatively warm, at least some of the time. They also have around 100 of them at the Bird and Animal Park. I'm not sure exactly what city that "Zoo" was in, but its pretty close to Hout Bay where my girlfriend lived.
I know some wholesalers, importers and International animal transporters. I use all of the above in my business. I will make some calls to check on the feasibility of importing some of your captive bred babies. This way we are not depleting any wild stocks either. Babies are also much more tolerant of being shipped around and acclimating to a new area.
I can't believe you actually have photos of exactly what I was talking about!!! Those are very similar to the giant one that I saw. They must be the same type from the same area.
I saw wild ones down at the Cape Point Preserve. I only saw around 6 of them over several days. That was in April and May of 2005 and it was still relatively warm, at least some of the time. They also have around 100 of them at the Bird and Animal Park. I'm not sure exactly what city that "Zoo" was in, but its pretty close to Hout Bay where my girlfriend lived.
I know some wholesalers, importers and International animal transporters. I use all of the above in my business. I will make some calls to check on the feasibility of importing some of your captive bred babies. This way we are not depleting any wild stocks either. Babies are also much more tolerant of being shipped around and acclimating to a new area.
Welcome,!
Tom said:
Hi Tom
Yes i never thought those giants would be seen in a private park in SA
They are enormous and beautiful. It would be very nice if you could get some info on exporting. Would love to hand out some of our enjoyments to other countries. I am going on holiday now for two weeks will post more photos and try and log in every now and again to post some.
Jacob.... Thank you for the welcome
Until next time God Bless
Neal said:
Hello Neal
I am going to visit that specific park in the next two weeks will post lots then, heard they have a really huge one now and would love to photograph him
Neal said:
Hallo Neal
I speak under correction... I think it is the galapagos living in Seychelles, and Ecuador. Some believed one reached the age of 176 years old
The aldabra is also a giant specie but i know little of them
You're saying the giants in the picture are gallopogos? lol, t's hard to tell how big they are without anything to compare it too. But, if that smaller one is at least ten inches, and the record leopard size is 26" than they couldn't be leopards. Now I'm embarrassed.
Those photos are awesome...
those big one looks like Aldabras with a leopard sitting next to them.. No?
cool either way!
I want to go back to SA. When I was there i saw a tortoise.. just sitting on a trail..no picture... it was not a big one..
cool either way!
I want to go back to SA. When I was there i saw a tortoise.. just sitting on a trail..no picture... it was not a big one..
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