SAN JACINTO -- A Riverside County man reunited with his wayward tortoise this afternoon (Saturday, Sept. 12) at the San Jacinto Valley Animal Campus.
The reunion solved a three-day mystery for Riverside County Animal Services employees after an animal control officer retrieved the wandering, 200-pound tortoise with the help of a good Samaritan, Brian Pruitt.
Mr. Pruitt contacted Riverside County at about 5 p.m. on Wednesday night (Sept. 9) and Officer Vicky Vanwinkle responded to the Sage Road location in Aguanga, just southeast of Hemet.
While waiting for the officer, Mr. Pruitt waited nearby the tortoise, but didn’t realize how fast the critter could move, so he lost sight of him. But, after about an hour search -- and following the the tortoise’s tracks in the wet sand -- he and the officer tracked him down.
The tortoise was transported to the San Jacinto Valley Animal Campus where today’s reunion happened. In fact, Mr. Pruitt helped in the reunion process too. He contacted a neighbor, Vince Tarantino, to find out if he just might happen to own a tortoise.
Sure enough, Mr. Tarantino, confirmed that he not only owned one, but two, tortoises.
Mr. Tarantino showed up at the animal shelter with proper documentation and took “Tortoise” -- as his pet is officially called -- back to his Aguanga property. (NOTE: Mr. Tarantino had been out of town and didn’t realize one of his two large tortoises had taken a road trip.)
Due to the torrential rain storms that hit the southeast Riverside County area this week, a portion of the tortoises’ sanctuary area had been washed out, allowing for a space just large enough for Tortoise to satisfy his traveling curiosities. The female tortoise could not be bothered with any new adventures.
But Tortoise might be road weary now. When Tortoise -- whose age is more than 100 years old -- returned home, it appeared that he was pretty much done with his globe-trotting ways.
“He went straight for his hole,” Mr. Tarantino said. “He’s got a burrow that is about 8 feet to 10 feet deep. I think he was tired. He went for his hole and he nestled down there.”
