Tortoise ID?

Going through old pictures from my childhood and came across this one, about 25 years old now. Living in San Bernadino, CA as a boy my family and I came across this tortoise wondering around the neighborhood. He lived with us for several months. He disappeared and we figured he had moved on. Several months later cleaning out our garage, my father found him in the corner tucked next to some boxes. Took him out to the backyard and fed him. Apparently he survived several months without water and food in our garage. Poor guy

I have always had my suspicions to what he/she was, but would like to hear from someone else. Any ideas?

Desert tortoise. Likely agassizii.

Thanks Nick. Figured if anyone would know it would be you. Desert tortoise is what we thought too. If memory serves me right I thought they were on the protected or endangered list back in the day? Not sure if that is still the case now though.

Anytime. They are protected, but they can be adopted very easily if one wants to take the legal route to keeping them. If they are just existing on the property and not being kept, that might not be necessary, but I am not aware of exactly where the delineation falls. The threshold for me would be if I am placing the animal in an enclosure instead of it being wild, but the law could disagree. For the most part, things are gravy unless someone tries to sell them. There are prohibitions to breeding, but they breed in people's yards quite often and nothing seems to ever come of that in terms of legal problems as long as the offspring are given away (sale can carry a hefty fine).