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Flaim, D. 2003, March 15Tortoise grows out of control as household pet - sulcatas end up rejected, abandoned. The Chronicle.
Added by: Admin (14 Aug 2008 20:36:22 UTC) Last edited by: Sarina Wunderlich (06 Nov 2008 10:48:49 UTC) |
| Resource type: Newspaper Article BibTeX citation key: Flaim2003a View all bibliographic details  |
Categories: General Keywords: Geochelone, Geochelone sulcata, Haltung = husbandry, Schildkröten = turtles + tortoises, Testudinidae, Veterinärmedizin = veterinary medicine Creators: Flaim Collection: The Chronicle |
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Testudinidae "An elephant in a shell." That's how Lori Green, director of Turtle Homes, a nonprofit rescue and conservation organization on New York's Long Island, describes Geochelone sulcata, also known as the African spurred tortoise. Maturing into the tortoise equivalent of an untrained, unhousebroken Great Dane, sulcatas are one of the biggest crises facing rehabbers and rescuers. "There isn't a day that goes by that we don't have a request to rehome one, " says Green, who also handles rescue and adoptions for the New York Turtle and Tortoise Society. "Very, very few people can manage a sulcata permanently. Yet they're sold in almost every pet shop and at all the reptile shows." Also marketed as sultan, sun and African tortoises, or mislabeled as Mediterranean spur-thighed tortoises (a species that looks similar as a hatchling but reaches only a foot long), sulcatas are cute babies and can be purchased for as little as $25. But the tortoises -- which are prolific breeders in captivity -- average about 30 inches and 100 pounds when they grow up. And grow they do. "By 5 pounds, they're scraping the baseboards on your house," Green says. "By 10 pounds, they can go through Sheetrock. And by 20 pounds, they can move furniture." In their native sub-Saharan Africa, sulcatas eat only during the three- month rainy season, when they graze on native grasses, and they escape the relentless heat by snoozing in gigantic tunnels they've excavated. Overfeeding a sulcata can quadruple its growth rate, and nutritional imbalances can contribute to "pyramiding," in which the shell grows lumpy, looking like a miniature mountain range. The sulcata's strong burrowing instinct translates into ripped flooring, shredded carpets and potholed backyards. Green recalls the couple who spent $25,000 to drill and repair the foundation of their home when their two 25- pound sulcatas tunneled under it and wouldn't resurface. "As hatchlings, they're incredibly cute," says Allen Salzberg, editor and publisher of HerpDigest, a free electronic newsletter on reptile and amphibian conservation. "But no one tells you how big they get -- that eventually it's like having a 19-inch-screen television walking around your house. I've seen one go eyeball-to-eyeball with a German shepherd -- and the German shepherd blinked first." Want to go the "Born Free" route and just release your sulcata into the "wild"? Think again. Sulcatas cannot survive in cold climates and must spend the winters indoors. Because of their formidable size and strength, sulcatas need a room devoted to them; ideally, the temperature should be kept between 72 and 75 degrees, with access to a warmer zone of 85 degrees. Then there is the reality of sulcata scatology. "Remember the scene in the first 'Jurassic Park,' when Laura Dern put her hand in a pile of Triceratops dung?" Salzberg says. "Sulcata dung is comparable." Sulcatas can live outdoors year-round in hot-weather states with minimal rainfall, such as Arizona. But even in those arid climes, they need shelter and a heat source at night. And the tortoises still are not companions in the general sense of the word. "They are the African version of a gopher tortoise, and nobody has a gopher tortoise as a pet," Salzberg says. "They have it as a guest. It comes up every once in a while and says hello, but it's tunneling and winds up in your neighbor's yard." Indeed, as sulcatas rapidly become throwaways, turtle rescuers are overwhelmed with the task of trying to find suitable homes. Shipping them south is one solution, but an ecologically dicey one, as no one can predict how sulcatas might affect indigenous animal populations. And unhappy owners who decide to stick it out are in for a long wait. "This is a tortoise that will live 150 years," says Green, who offers a "Sulcata Reality Check" page at her Web site, www.turtlehomes.org. "So be prepared to will them to your grandchildren -- maybe even great-grandchildren.".
Added by: Admin Last edited by: Sarina Wunderlich |