Unlikely weekend visitor
BRIAN WALKER/[email protected] | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 10 years, 5 months AGO
<p>A tortoise feeds on grasses in the yard of Glenn and Kathy Dutro near Huetter Road on Monday. The tortoise was discovered by Kathy while working near the couple’s garden on Friday.</p>
<p>Glenn Dutro holds the tortoise that wandered into his yard last week. Dutro estimates the reptile weigh about 25 pounds.</p>
<p>With the help of the Kootenai County Sheriffs Office Animal Control division, the Dutros, who discovered a pet tortoise in their yard last week, were able to locate its owner and return it Monday afternoon.</p>
POST FALLS - Kathy Dutro thought she had spotted a "strange rock" in her pasture.
"I thought, 'I've never had a rock that big in the field,'" she said.
Then it moved.
When Dutro got a closer look, she found a tortoise meandering on her property along Huetter Road on Friday.
"It was getting close to the road and was afraid it might get run over, so I put it on our backyard with metal around it," Dutro said. "I called Fish and Game thinking it may be indigenous to Idaho and they said, 'No, it has to be someone's pet because they can't survive below 60 degrees."
Kathy and her husband, Glenn, made fliers to distribute to their neighbors to see if anyone in the vicinity was missing a tortoise. No luck.
"We figured either it had gotten loose or somebody dumped it," Glenn said.
The couple kept the tortoise - which is about 15 inches long, 8 inches tall and weighs about 25 pounds - over the weekend. Dutro contacted a pet store to see what tortoises dine on and inquire about its water needs.
"Our granddaughter really got excited when it started to eat strawberries," Dutro said. "That seems to be his favorite. He had a lot of red dropping down his chin."
The couple contacted The Press on Monday hoping the tortoise's owner would come forward after a story was published. Their checklist also included contacting animal control of the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office and taking it to the Kootenai Humane Society mid-week if the owner still hadn't been found.
Sure enough, when animal control was contacted, a resident had reported two missing tortoises. The father of the tortoise's owner picked up the tortoise that the Dutros found, while another one is still meandering from home.
The owner of the tortoises lives in Brickert Estates, which is near where the Dutros live. The tortoises have been missing about a week.
"Apparently they can dig under about anything," said Dutro, adding that it sounds like the owner has had issues with tortoises escaping before.
The owner could not be reached before press time on Monday.
While the Dutros didn't mind temporarily watching over the tortoise, they didn't become attached enough to want to keep it.
"I started to think that we had a new kind of wildlife here in North Idaho," joked Glenn. "We have enough animals to take care of. We don't need any more."
ARTICLES BY BRIAN WALKER/[email protected]
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