Stolen Tortoises

Hello,

I am reaching out to the tortoise/reptile community for help in recovering some animals that were stolen from our home. Our home was violently broken into today, and besides a couple of game consoles, the only items stolen were 5 tortoises.

Below are recent pictures of the stolen tortoises. They are 2 indian star tortoises, and three leopard tortoises (babcocki). These were taken within one week of today 11/15.



Below, the one on the left was stolen, we still have the one on the right.







We are quite certain the people who stole them are not aware of their value or even what they are. We had several higher end tortoises in the same room that were not touched.

These particular tortoises were from our personal collection, and have great sentimental value to us. We are pationate about our hobby, and take very good care of our tortoises, we are greatly concerned for their well being.

We are considering a reward at this time, but cannot promise anything at this point.

If you can provide any information please contact us at:

neal@grandcanyonstatetortoises.com

(I apologize if this is not on the correct forum. I am not familiar with the site and am trying frantically right now to get the word out as quickly as possible)

Thanks,
Neal

i would start with anyone you have shown your animals too. good luck.

mike

Moved to the 'Police Blotter' forum....

Not sure if you have, but I would keep an eye on your local "Pets" category on CraigsList. I've met a couple people that were able to get there pets back after finding them for sale on there. Good luck.

Thanks. We'll definitely keep an eye on craigslist, and we have also contacted all of our local reptile/exotics dealers in our area with descriptions of our tortoises.

We have filed a police report, and the forensics unit was able to find some good items that may be useful. Right now, I think our best bet is that the person will try to sell them locally and I think we have covered our bases in that respect...hopefully we will here something today.

I don't keep track of when shows are happening but you're pretty close to Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento. You may want to see if anyone you know is going and send them with pictures of your animals.

Sounds like someone scoped you out. Your recent visitor list should be getting a good second or third look too.

We actually have our big AZ show this weekend. We're friends with some tortoise vendors that will likely be at the California shows. They know our situation, and I'm sure they would be happy to look out for anything over there.

Admittedly, we're a little lameish I guess...as in we don't have very many visitors to our house...in fact, our visitor list can only be narrowed down to family and close friends. It doesn't seem like our tortoises were targeted as our more valuable animals were left behind. It just seems like someone saw these and thought they were cool so they took a couple...as such, I'm really hoping they will make a mistake such as posting info on websites like this, or taking them to a local petshop.

It sounds like neighborhood kids since they took games. My neighbor hood was hit 3 nights in a row with 7 houses and cars hit. The kids knew the locals and when they went to church or work and stole things that only kids would steal.

Good luck

We were able to get the police involved, they went throughout our neighborhood and knocked doors, so hopefully people are on alert.

The tortoises are strong, but being so young, there is a lot of risk with them being kept in sub-par conditions. It makes the matter of finding them all the more urgent.

I hate thieves, especially those so low that they'd steal pets. If you have the serial numbers from your game consoles they can be caught when they try to sell them. Also, I believe if you contact Microsoft (Xbox) and Sony (Playstation) they are sometimes able to electronically track them. Good luck!