If you can read this, either the style sheet didn't load or you have an older browser that doesn't support style sheets. Try clearing your browser cache and refreshing the page.
Fark SearchWeb Fark

         more options... Create account

(AP) Sappy If you're heading out to the Mojave Desert anytime soon, and have a little extra passenger space, then Sadie would love a lift. Oh, and just so you know, Sadie just happens to be a desert tortoise   (hosted.ap.org) divider line 30
More: Sappy  

30 Comments   (+0 »)


Archived thread
 
Rhames 2008-09-07 09:47:54 AM  
animated-views.com

 
CommonSenseSurrenders 2008-09-07 09:48:59 AM  
ecx.images-amazon.com

 
skinink 2008-09-07 09:50:29 AM  

 
bonehead800 2008-09-07 09:50:34 AM  

All in where you are. A few years ago, a tortoise was found on a road near Indianapolis and taken to the Zoo to be ID'd. They thought it was a gopher tortoise (threatened, edging towards endangered) which is a southeastern species. So, they sent 'im to the Clinic for Rehabilitation of Wildlife on Sanibel Island, Florida... where it was discovered that he was a desert tortoise and was having a really hard time in the Florida humidity.


Sanibel/Captiva being a second-home spot for many ridiculously rich people, they routinely get nice donations to help with various things. This time, someone anonymously donated their private plane and flight crew to fly the tortoise (sole passenger) to California.


 
JesterGirl [TotalFark] 2008-09-07 10:05:22 AM  
Warning - fellow associate
ui18.gamespot.com

/considered armed and dangerous

 
serillian 2008-09-07 10:05:52 AM  
I really hope that I can heave a pet tortise someday. Like some sort of slow moving lawn ornament it would amble around my yard munching on greens. And I've heard that come winter you can just put them in your closet so they can hibernate. Would be SWEET.

 
The_Pole_Of_Justice 2008-09-07 10:07:36 AM  
She's the latest and the greatest of them all.

 
cryinoutloud [TotalFark] 2008-09-07 10:13:28 AM  
serillian: I really hope that I can heave a pet tortise someday. Like some sort of slow moving lawn ornament it would amble around my yard munching on greens. And I've heard that come winter you can just put them in your closet so they can hibernate. Would be SWEET.

I had a couple of turtles (not tortoises, although I was always on the lookout for them), who lived in my house and outside in a pen, when I lived in the desert.

They're good pets--don't poop much, you can always find them, and really interesting to watch. And in the winter, yes, if I left mine outside, he'd dig a hole and crawl in. The colder it got, the longer he'd stay underground.

 
Peekoo 2008-09-07 10:13:31 AM  
What on earth? I guess I know nothing about tortoises. I didn't know there were "land" versions.

 
mikaloyd 2008-09-07 10:13:36 AM  
Cold-blooded desert tortoises are unaccustomed to temperatures below 40, much less when the mercury dips to freezing temperatures. To survive a winter in Cusick, Sadie would have to be kept indoors for months.

Whoever told them that it mostly stays above 40 and seldom freezes in the Mojave desert has never been there in winter. Tortoises dig holes and hibernate to avoid it.

 
the opposite of charity is justice 2008-09-07 10:25:32 AM  
i96.photobucket.com

Tea in the Sahara with you?

 
Heath Ledger's Pharmacist 2008-09-07 10:27:59 AM  
Peekoo: What on earth? I guess I know nothing about tortoises. I didn't know there were "land" versions.

All tortoises are land dwelling.

 
Peekoo 2008-09-07 10:35:40 AM  
Heath Ledger's Pharmacist: Peekoo: What on earth? I guess I know nothing about tortoises. I didn't know there were "land" versions.

All tortoises are land dwelling.

Wow. I guess you can't know what you don't know. Time for me to do some reading up on tortoises.

 
bonehead800 2008-09-07 10:54:15 AM  
Peekoo: Heath Ledger's Pharmacist: Peekoo: What on earth? I guess I know nothing about tortoises. I didn't know there were "land" versions.

All tortoises are land dwelling.

Wow. I guess you can't know what you don't know. Time for me to do some reading up on tortoises.


Very general rules: Turtles are mostly aquatic, tortoises are terrestrial and terrapins split the difference. Technically/phylogenetically speaking, box "turtles" are tortoises. Those definitions vary by who you're talking to and somewhat by where you are, but in a very broad sense they'll do.


 
gtaluvit 2008-09-07 11:04:13 AM  
I'm actually heading out there Sunday but I won't be paying for the extra seat. She'll also need special attention as the area around Edwards AFB requires protection of the desert tortoise. Fun fact, the tortoise pees if it feels it's in danger which basically kills the tortoise by dehydration.

 
strathmeyer 2008-09-07 11:10:08 AM  
No, I learned my lesson with the last tortoise I gave a lift to.

 
lazarustaxon 2008-09-07 11:16:28 AM  
serillian: I really hope that I can heave a pet tortise someday. Like some sort of slow moving lawn ornament it would amble around my yard munching on greens. And I've heard that come winter you can just put them in your closet so they can hibernate. Would be SWEET.

Not all species of tortoise hibernate. Do your research. Your tort will thank you.

///red foot tortoise owner
///neither of us hibernate
///PIP

 
re-elect_jimmy_carter 2008-09-07 11:19:24 AM  
i can give sadie a ride, but im only going as far as my soup pot.

 
Uncivil Engineer 2008-09-07 11:34:44 AM  
gtaluvit I'm actually heading out there Sunday but I won't be paying for the extra seat. She'll also need special attention as the area around Edwards AFB requires protection of the desert tortoise. Fun fact, the tortoise pees if it feels it's in danger which basically kills the tortoise by dehydration.

Didn't you know? there are only two tortoises on base. They keep them in a bucket until a tour bus comes around, and then they let them loose. After the bus leaves (and before EM shows up) they put them back in the bucket. Problem solved, and we don't have to spend millions on 'turtle fence'.

 
apiarist 2008-09-07 12:04:01 PM  
When I was a kid and my dad was at Edwards, we lived in Lancaster just one lot away from the open desert. We had a tortoise we kept in the fenced back yard. But the back yard had no grass, so before I went to school in the morning, I'd take him out to the front lawn. Around lunchtime, my mother would come out and pick him up from the other side of the yard, which he had reached in making his daily break for freedom.

I thought it was funny at the time. 50 years later, it still bothers me a little.

/but we did let him go a year later when we moved.

 
Speaker2Animals 2008-09-07 12:26:16 PM  
Alleyoop: boooooobies!

pwwwwwnnned!

 
Single White Male 2008-09-07 12:44:14 PM  
The next time I head out to the desert to do peyote with my bohemian friends, I'll keep this in mind.

 
Alleyoop 2008-09-07 01:02:28 PM  
boooooobies!

You see, I intentionally posted first in order to get the "Boobieser filter" to bump me to last, and intentionally misspelled boobies so it would be obvious that the filter didn't convert the word "first" to "boobies" (with just "oo"), in order to celebrate the majestic unhurried beauty of the tortoise, which not only makes a point to smell the flowers as it makes its way slowly along the highway of life, but to also occasionally eat them as well, in an effort to demonstrate a metaphor of how we should all enjoy life to its fullest.

That, or I just had boobies on my mind at the time. It happens.

 
nunia 2008-09-07 01:21:04 PM  
I grew up out there, and the authorities always admonished the public to not touch the tortoises, because handled tortoises can catch a respiratory disease that clogs up their noses, forces them to breathe through their mouths, and they die of dehydration.

It's not a big deal when there is a readily available source of water. But for most wild tortoises, water is hard to find.

 
PokeyMon 2008-09-07 01:30:09 PM  
What did the snail say when he hopped on the tortoise?
"Wheee, slow down".........

 
atlas spanked 2008-09-07 01:44:50 PM  
Desert tortoises that are handled by humans (or snuffled by dogs) get pasteurella testudinus, basically a tortoise version of a severe upper respiratory cold. It also crops up when captive tortoises are kept at temperature that are too cold for them (i.e. about 90 percent of captives).

When infected tortoises are released back to the wild, fatality rates in wild populations can reach 90%. The abundant food most captive tortoises get can keep them alive, even with the disease. But wild tortoises die like indians with smallpox.

DO NOT release your 'pet' desert tortoise back to the wild. You'll further decimate the already plummeting population.

 
Pershing123 2008-09-07 02:07:55 PM  
In the days of yore, I met a girl in Victorville named Sadie. She was not a tortoise. On the other hand, I once met a tortoise while trail riding near El Mirage. It was no Sadie.

 
Selfabortion 2008-09-07 04:00:27 PM  
Does he go by the book?

 
Selfabortion 2008-09-07 04:02:04 PM  
what, no pictures of the tortoise in question? what kind of sappy tag is that?

 
Alleyoop 2008-09-07 09:45:24 PM  
boooooobies!

 
Displayed 30 of 30 comments

Redisplay/refresh comments

[Continue Farking]