Tortuous Search for Tortoise Continues

Missing: Teri, age about 70, suffers from scaly gray skin and a calcium deficiency, likes to play dead. If found, please check pulse.

Steve Killgore last saw his beloved pet desert tortoise nearly two months ago when Teri apparently trudged south from her Woodland Hills home toward Calabasas. In desperation, he posted at least 50 “missing� signs all over the area with black-and-white photos of himself cradling what looked like a deflated football. So deep was the 35-year-old man’s anguish, he even had his message flashed on a local cable TV channel.

It hasn’t come to milk cartons yet, but he’s close.

Killgore has received dozens of calls reporting wandering tortoise sightings from miles around, but none has produced his wrinkly Teri. The obsessed reptile owner has picked up two other domesticated strays in his hunt.

It’s hard for Killgore, who thrives on stress every day as an air-traffic controller, to explain his bond with one of the planet’s most boring animals.

Yes, it might look like a rock with eyes. OK, its brain could pass through a straw. And fine, it sits just a few rungs above an amoeba on the evolutionary ladder. But Killgore likes the thing and, after a rough day keeping planes from colliding, that’s enough.

He still remembers the moment he met the tortoise, a wizened Yoda-like creature probably twice his age. His wife, Kathy, noticed it in September, ambling along Woodlake Avenue toward Burbank Boulevard, three blocks from their house. And then, one morning, it just showed up in their yard.

“My two dogs woke me up, barking like crazy and panting like ‘Oh my God! The rock is moving,’ � Killgore said.

He spent days trying to find the reptile’s owner. He even went to a meeting of the local chapter of the Turtle and Tortoise Club, a conservation group. The club boasts 2,800 turtle lovers worldwide, and Killgore suddenly found he was not alone in his chelonian interests.

“Everybody in the club feels like they have a relationship with their turtle,� said Vice President Carole Kramer. “It’s not like a dog; they don’t come when you call them over. It just gives you a thrill to see this ancient animal share its life with you.�

Said Killgore: “This club even paid for one tortoise’s medical bills when its leg was amputated. They considered buying it a skate to replace the leg, but it was doing OK.�

Killgore learned from his turtle-loving buddies that because his tortoise had clearly been someone’s pet, it could not be returned to the wild.

Living as long as a century, the tortoises are found in the deserts of the Southwest. They burrow to escape temperatures up to 140 degrees and can live as long as a year without water, which bodes well for the wandering Teri.

Since the 1980s, the desert tortoise population has declined drastically, according to the National Wildlife Federation. Ravens, foxes and coyotes prey on juveniles, which are only a few inches long and have soft, delicate shells. The Mojave Desert tortoise was federally listed as a threatened species in 1990. It’s now illegal to touch, harm or harass a desert tortoise in the wild.

As the months passed and no owner turned up to claim his slab of scales, Killgore grew attached and picked up the paperwork to legally adopt her. He even named her Teri. “I thought I’d name her Teri Hatcher once she laid eggs,� he said.

He still can’t explain why he’s got such a warm spot for the ground-hugging slowpoke with the elephantine legs. He chuckles at his own passion. “It was like she just came to me,� he recalled wistfully. “She loved the roses and the flowers. She would nudge the dogs, nibble on dandelions and dig tunnels . . .�

That picture of contentment was shattered about seven weeks ago when Teri awoke from winter hibernation. Killgore came home to find a hole under his metal fence, which Teri must have lifted to crawl away.

“April 25,� he said. “She was gone.�

Susan Tellem, executive director of Malibu-based American Tortoise Rescue, said runaways--or rather, walkaways--are typical, but desert tortoises have a good chance of surviving.

“That’s the tortoise’s main goal in life--to escape. . . In nature, they have a roaming pattern, and when they wake up in the spring, they’re lookin’ for love.�

Killgore is convinced his geriatric love-machine headed south, because when he first found her, she was heading that way.

He now yearns for the sight of her weathered shell, shrunken from calcium depletion and marked with traces of blue paint. He misses her carefree, almost youthful personality and the sounds of hisses, pops and poinks Teri made as she moseyed about the garden.

Still, Killgore has not given up hope. He’s working on an updated flier with a new photo and details on where Teri was last seen.

James Rosenberg, a Westlake Village turtle owner, empathized with Killgore and offered encouraging words: “My three sons were so upset when they lost their turtle five years ago. It was only three inches across. They found him last month in the neighbor’s garden and he was the size of my laptop.�