They’re personable, they’re entertaining, they know their names.

July 31, 2016 8:20 AM

Like to watch baby tortoises eating watermelon, strawberries, or tiny pancakes? They've become a huge problem.
posted by AFABulous (25 comments total)

I for one welcome our Sulcata overlords.

Seriously though the idea of buying a pet that can theoretically live 150+ years and get over 200 lbs should be terrifying to just about any prospective owner.
posted by vuron at 8:28 AM on July 31, 2016 [9 favorites]

BuzzFeed: OMFG watch these videos of tiny tortoises eating people food. SQUEEE!!!!
BuzzFeed: You Won't Believe How Tiny Tortoises Are Ruining The Lives of Stupid People
posted by stevil at 8:53 AM on July 31, 2016 [30 favorites]

But aw the one eating a strawberry looks just like Mola Ram :D<3
posted by sexyrobot at 8:56 AM on July 31, 2016

But how do they taste? Turtles, apparently, are delicious.
posted by pipeski at 9:03 AM on July 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

Of course, it's not the tortoises that are the huge problem. It's that other species.
posted by mondo dentro at 9:04 AM on July 31, 2016 [13 favorites]

I read this article a few days ago and the behavior is just mind bogglingly stupid.

These pet stores tell all sorts of lies about how big the sulcatas will grow. Why don't they just sell one of the other species of tortoise that are just as cute when tiny babies but don't end up being gigantic beasts that live for 100+ years?

My wife and I have a Russian tortoise. Russian tortoises live about 50 years, long but manageable, and only get to be about 10 inches are so long. That is a reasonable pet for people to own. There are very, very few people in the world who are truly able and willing to take care of a sulcata.

Even with the easier species to take care of, many people do not adequately care for their turtles and tortoises. It is horribly sad to see pictures of what happens to those poor little guys- usually due to poor nutrition or not enough space. The article mentions it but I feel the need to reiterate again as I have had many people say it to me when I tell them that I have a turtle and a tortoise. YOU CANNOT KEEP A TURTLE SMALL BY KEEPING THEM IN A SMALL TANK. THAT IS TORTURING THEM.
posted by nolnacs at 9:12 AM on July 31, 2016 [16 favorites]

I don't understand how anyone at all can ethically get an infant pet whose lifespan is longer than that of a human. This animal will definitely outlive you, and it may outlive your children. There just isn't any kind of plan that you can put in place that will guarantee that this animal will be cared for during its entire lifespan. I don't think that breeding or selling these animals should be legal.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:20 AM on July 31, 2016 [15 favorites]

This documentary is about big cats, not tortoises, but it's a similar concept: people buying cubs because they're cute and then becoming unable to care for them. WARNING: EXTREMELY DEPRESSING AND VERY GRAPHIC.
posted by AFABulous at 9:21 AM on July 31, 2016

It's completely shocking how little regulation there is on the breeding and trade of animals.
posted by AFABulous at 9:21 AM on July 31, 2016 [1 favorite]

wow, i thought my housemate was irresponsible when she bought a kitten and then abandoned him a year later when she graduated and joined the military

this is a whole other level
posted by indubitable at 9:30 AM on July 31, 2016

I just hate pet stores, and I'm not too fond of most breeders, either.

So today, right now, I am procrastinating going to the bunny shelter I volunteer at. It's not my day to go in, but we're shorthanded, so I'm going to go in there (in a minute, I swear!) to scrub some crates and do some laundry and dishes and mop the floors because we have probably about 200 bunnies in there, many of which have been dumped, either by irresponsible owners or breeders, and someone has to care for them. Bunnies don't even live very long or get very big, but people can't even commit to ten years with a fluffy little bunny.

One of the reasons we're shorthanded right now is because some asshole got tired of their bunnies and set them loose in their neighborhood. A male and a female, unneutered, so they're out there doing what bunnies do, and that godforsaken neighborhood now has a reported 40+ bunnies running around, which the godforsaken neighbors are apparently dealing with by throwing rocks at them. So a bunch of them are now also injured, and our volunteers are making the hour long drive to try to catch as many of those bunnies as they can, get them to safety, treat their injuries, and do something to stop the proliferation.

That's pretty common, actually. There's a breeder in a different city who regularly dumps the bunnies she doesn't sell, and I found the shelter I volunteer at when someone else dumped their giant white domestic rabbit in my yard, in my neighborhood that is overrun with coyotes at night. (They came to the house, caught her, spayed her, then paired her up with a handsome single bunny who she went home with.)

Just fucking stop it, everyone. Stop going to pet stores that sell animals. Stop going to shitty backyard breeders. Do your homework, and if you want a pet, go to a shelter or rescue where there are pets that need homes. Stop making me clean up after you.
posted by ernielundquist at 10:07 AM on July 31, 2016 [43 favorites]

In the southwest, we have the additional problem of too many desert tortoises which need homes.

It's illegal to collect them from the wild, but people still have them and breed them and since they live up to 80 or so years, and can't be reintroduced to the wild, trying to care for all the discarded pet tortoises is causing a real burden on wild tortoise sanctuaries.
posted by Squeak Attack at 10:26 AM on July 31, 2016 [4 favorites]

Pah-fert-jahs?
posted by humboldt32 at 10:37 AM on July 31, 2016

I have a ton of issues with the trade in exotic animals in general.

Big Cats? Nope I've been to way too many rescue shelters
Parrots and other exotic birds? Nope all you have to do is watch one of the documentaries about asylums for self harming birds that have been abandoned by their owners
Tortoises like these? Hell no

People get all sorts of animals because they are cute when they are young. At least with dogs and cats there is a reasonably large population of people willing to foster those animals (not that there aren't unscrupulous breeders and shitty owners). The number of private owners willing to make the time commitment necessary to care for some of these exotics is probably something I can count on two hands.
posted by vuron at 11:04 AM on July 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

The baby tortoises are adorable though. (I live a mammal-only lifestyle, though I'd love to have reptiles, I know it would not work.)

Oh hey, Henry the ex-fosterhood tortoise is featured. I did not know he was so poorly treated before he was rehomed.
posted by jeather at 11:30 AM on July 31, 2016

These pet stores tell all sorts of lies about how big the sulcatas will grow.

Because they have high fecundity, which makes them easily available and cheap. And they're pretty hardy.

I'm always torn on the topic. I have a big girl who's somewhere north of 50lbs. (Professor Hank Turbo eating) But I knew when I got her that she would grow this big, and we have bent over backwards ensuring she gets the care she needs. Which is tough in Wisconsin, but doable if you try and have the space. In fairness, I have not planned for her care after my demise so I'm not batting 100.

Sulcatas and other tortoises aren't the only problem though- they are probably just the worst example. There are tons of fish bound for the aquarium trade that could never be housed in an aquarium outside a zoo once full grown that are not just available, but popular in the aquarium trade. And reptiles like iguanas get up to 6' and become grouchy assholes that will hit you with their whiplike tail. And many popular snakes grow well past what people can manage. Even those that find a home at their large size- there are cases where pet snakes have killed other pets, and in rare instances, small children. Even Russian tortoises, mentioned above, are prone to mistreatment- people rarely provide large enough spaces and are loath to spent money on good UV lighting. Turtles(!), the ridiculous aquatic varity are abandoned in droves or just mistreated in tiny, dirty aquariums. Try telling someone the reason their turtle is sick is because it needs a better home that's going to cost them 20-50x what they initially paid and watch how quickly they around and ask if anyone wants a free turtle.

I don't have an answer. The whole pet trade is filled with problems that end up with the abandoment and death of so many supposed companions. I wonder if anyone has looked at the number of pets that remain in homes as opposed to those that either die or end up abandoned. I don't think we have a way of tracking that, but I suspect it would be horrifying.

(Also, that "cute" video makes me nuts- that's all food that is bad for sulcatas!)
posted by [insert clever name here] at 12:11 PM on July 31, 2016 [4 favorites]

And on that note- Russian tortoises and other small species aren't a great answer either. They're taken from the wild, often in places that have serious population declines in some parts of their native habitat. But they produce small broods- so unlike the sulcata, they just aren't being raised on any viable widespread numbers to compete with low cost wild tortoises.

And there is another flip side to this- increasingly we're seeing animals that are extinct or near extinct in the wild that have a resevoir in captivity. Egyptian tortoises are on the brink of extinction in the wild- yet due to dedicated enthusiasts, have a bigger population in captivity. While the pet trade is blamed for some of their loss, more importantly it's habitat loss and human development that's driving their numbers down, while enthusiasts are breeding them because the value and demand is so high.

The Red Tailed Shark (not actually a shark) nearly extinct in the wild as well, yet there is a large, thriving population in captivity because it is a high demand fish in aquaria. Their plight is from habitat loss, not the aquarium trade- those for sale are captive bred too.

We're seeing many similar issues with other exotics- loss in the wild, but where they are valued in the pet trade, a stable population is growing and maintaining itself. My assumption is that this will only continue as we wipe out more species, and I know I'm not the only one that thinks this.

There isn't any simple answer, unfortunately.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 12:44 PM on July 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

I mean given the super cute videos it might seem crass, but seriously, could you not eat these tortoises?

If we're stretching our understandably thin tortoise foster-care and dating-service safety nets, couldn't we, just, you know, eat them?
posted by TheProfessor at 1:02 PM on July 31, 2016 [4 favorites]

I want to answer flippantly but I won't.

We're not eating them for the same reason we don't eat cats and dogs- they're pets, and though the distinction is somewhat arbitrary, for better or worse, we don't eat our pets.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 1:18 PM on July 31, 2016 [5 favorites]

When I was growing up in the suburbs in the '60s, I found a tortoise that looks exactly like the Sulcatas pictured in the street while riding my bike. It was just over a foot long and had a hole drilled in the back right corner of its shell so apparently it was somebody's pet/possession, but we couldn't find anyone within blocks of our house who was missing a tortoise (or admitted they'd abandoned one), so we unofficially adopted "Terance Stump" (named punningly after actor Terence Stamp) and kept him in our fenced-in backyard. Our yard had a couple nice large areas of grass he was happy to help mow by eating (and we supplemented it with the hard cores of iceberg lettuce that neither I nor my father would touch), but it also had a full-sized built-in swimming pool. After one time I noticed Terence on the edge of the pool looking in, I grabbed him and moved him to the green grass, lecturing him that he was NOT an amphibian. The family discussed using that hole in his shell to restrain his wandering area, but before we could make a commitment and buy the right kind of rope, he returned to the pool and fell in. I discovered him, on his back in the shallow end and totally drowned... my first dead pet trauma, although we'd only had him a few weeks, so I never knew if he'd ever grow larger.

. for Terence Stump who lives on in my inspiration to give pets pun-based names (like Floyd the Cockatiel, inspired by "Pretty Boy" Floyd because birds are often called "Pretty Boy"... Lollypup, the part-Lab part-Collie dog... you know, Lollie?... and the cat I call Grover Cleveland because if Garfield can be a cat, why not?)
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:47 PM on July 31, 2016 [2 favorites]

Tortoises hold a small but permanent place in my heart thanks to the San Diego Zoo's Galápagos Tortoises.

Their story is pretty neat actually--the Zoo has had a colony of tortoises since 1928 and some of those original nestlings are still at the Zoo! In a previous incarnation of the exhibit, we kids were allowed to touch their shells. Mind you, that sounds super unsafe for the humans (salmonella, kids being kids) and super unsafe for the tortoises (stress, kids being kids) but it was pretty delightful. I can see why people find tortoises to be fun pets.

That said? Sulcatas, by everything that's been written here, sounds like exactly the kind of animal which should be admired in a zoo or sanctuary and never, ever allowed in a person's home.
posted by librarylis at 7:41 PM on July 31, 2016

I've grown up with turtles (not tortoises, but definitely turtles, as except for the one water turtle, none of them have grown larger than maybe five inches), and right now my mum has four that have pretty much been with us since my childhood and that I not-so-jokingly say I will inherit. I think she'd love to get a tortoise one day after she retires and could get a place with some decent land, but then she also knows that I will inherit them and the smallish turtles she has are plenty enough for me.

They are decently spoiled, however. They all have their own tanks w/ UV sun lamps -- mostly in case of company, because they spend most of their time roaming the living room that is baby-gated from the rest of the house. When I visit my parents, it is not uncommon to be sitting on the sofa, lost in a book, and then get distracted by a ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk noise and realize it's just one of the box turtles who still, after all these years, hasn't figured out that just because her head fits under the dresser that's used as a sideboard, doesn't mean the rest of her shelled body will. But oh, how she tries (while most of my mum's turtles are indeed freakishly intelligent, this one is, ah, decidedly not). It's also not uncommon to suddenly have a turtle decide it's time to cuddle and attempt to burrow up your pajama leg.

Strawberries are turtle candy, though, and for the not-so-bright turtle, it's sometimes the only way Mum can make sure she's eating. The after-effects of strawberry consumption also makes for great turtle lipstick. Oh, and the not-so-bright one will also be coaxed into eating with the promise of a juicy earthworm, and it's fascinating to watch her diligently chomp away as it attempts to escape while writhing around her neck. I've learned to stop checking anything that looks like a leftover take-out container in the fridge, because experience has taught me there's a strong chance it will be earthworms from the local bait shop. I have no idea about the turtles' stance on tiny pancakes, but despite thinking it would not be good for them, I also know turtles' will try to put just about anything into their mouths at least once. They are essentially toddlers in that way.

Anyway, this is all to say that I'm definitely forwarding on those video links, that turtles are awesome (and tortoises are too, even if they shouldn't be pets), but holy heck yes they require tons of TLC. Even though I dread the day when I will become responsible for the ginormous 100 gallon tank where the water turtle resides for part of the year (for she, too, is allowed free roam of the living room except for breaks for feeding and rehydrating and just generally being reminded that she's a water turtle and not a sofa turtle), I will accept my fate because they are essentially my family. Mum spent a ridiculous amount of money getting them special visas and shipping them over from the States (since they are not indigenous to the UK), when it might have been "easier" just to give them away. But they are her babies, having been in her life for as nearly long as I have, and anyone who's not ready for the lifelong responsibility for a hard-shelled baby has no reason buying one.

(Although my mum only purchased the two water turtles, and adopted the two box turtles that were found -- one in our backyard that was trying to hide from the neighbor's dog, and the other one I can't remember where but I have a vague recollection that we saved her from getting run over in the middle of the street. The latter, to no one's surprise, is the not-so-bright one.)
posted by paisley sheep at 9:37 PM on July 31, 2016 [8 favorites]

It's nice to see Ze Frank is staying busy at Buzzfeed
posted by photoslob at 6:48 AM on August 1, 2016

The exotic animal trade is the 21st century version of the slave trade (yes, I know the slave trade is still a thing). It is cruel, corrupt, rotten and evil from root to tip. Any animal bought from a pet store and not adopted from a shelter is trading in misery and suffering at some level.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:54 PM on August 1, 2016

CORRECTION
A previous version of this story misstated Henry’s age. We apologize to Henry.

:]
posted by Gordafarin at 8:16 AM on August 2, 2016 [3 favorites]