Tortoise comes back home

A rogue tortoise has found his way back home. Khoopa, a 50-pound African sulcata tortoise, made headlines last week when his family made online pleas for his safe return after he went missing from their Norris Coulee-area home over the long weekend. “We were away for the long weekend and we had a house-sitter, and she messaged me a couple of days before we got home and said Khoopa was missing,” said owner Jody Jordan. The house-sitter had let the tortoise out of his pen on Saturday afternoon, when it was hot outside – something the family allows him to do regularly, as he enjoys walking the yard and foraging fresh grass. But when the sitter went to bring him back to his pen a few hours later, he was nowhere to be seen. Jordan called Southern Alberta Veterinary Emergency (SAVE) in Okotoks and posted on Facebook to let neighbours and local vets know the tortoise had gone missing, should anyone happen to find him. She wasn’t expecting the response. “It just went crazy, it was shared thousands of times,” said Jordan. “We just wanted our neighbours to know and we wanted people in the area to be aware, if he got out this was where he belonged. The attention it got was crazy.” It didn’t stop with social media sharing. The Jordans had no shortage of help during their week-long search for Khoopa on and around their property. Volunteers came out to the home every morning, and each day began with a thorough search of the Jordans’ yard before venturing out beyond the property lines. “We had a scent-tracking dog out here one morning, we had a guy with a drone come out, we had neighbours out on quads, everybody was on foot, and we still could not find him,” said Jordan. “We even had a psychic reach out to us and say where Khoopa was, and oddly enough I think that she was probably right about where he was, we just didn’t find him.” The biggest challenge in the search was having a limited amount of time per day to find the tortoise. Khoopa comes out when it’s warm, and as soon as the air starts to cool off he will burrow for the night – that’s why the family returns him to a pen in the evening. “So we would only have until about 4 or 5 p.m. before we knew he would burrow down for the night to keep warm and keep out of harm’s way from predators through the night,” said Jordan. It was difficult to know where to look for Khoopa. He hadn’t left any kind of trail when he disappeared, which was odd for the tortoise, she said. “When he walks, especially because our lawn wasn’t cut, you can see where Khoopa goes,” said Jordan. “He’s very distinct in the grass. When he walks, it flattens the grass and you can see where he’s been.” On Friday afternoon, four volunteers were out on the hunt for Khoopa. Jordan was trying to get some work done, and left the house to get some supplies. About 40 minutes after she left the house, a volunteer – Gracie Brown – returned to the home to get some water. On a whim, Brown decided to walk around the property again, since she was at the house anyway. She walked up to the front gate and found Khoopa, walking his usual path through the yard. “He always walks the same path, he’s not one that cuts across the yard, he walks the same path along the west and the north side of the yard,” said Jordan. Elated at finding the family pet but curious as to where he’d been, Jordan suggested they follow his path and see where he had come from. His path led back to a mountain of droppings – about six days’ worth. In addition, the tortoise was starving. Jordan said the two clues indicated he hadn’t been walking around for the week. If he had been out in the wild for six days, he would have had his fill of grass and dandelions, and other greens along the way, she said. As for the feces, she said it’s common for animals to not defecate in stressful or unknown situations. “So it’s one of two things,” said Jordan. “Either he was burrowed somewhere for six days under one of our pine trees in the front yard, or he was taken and somebody brought him back.” She said the family isn’t ruling out the latter. It’s possible the tortoise was taken from their property but returned once all the media and online hype started up. The Jordans had also notified buy-and-sell sites across the prairies as well as veterinary offices to be on the lookout for the animal, so selling or caring for him would have been difficult. Without evidence either way, she said they’ll never know what really happened. They’re just grateful to have the tortoise back home. “Only Khoopa knows,” said Jordan with a laugh.