A 50-pound sulcata tortoise from Missouri is back where she belongs after spending nine days on the loose, much to the relief of her worried family and the local community.
The escape artist, 13-year-old Liam, covered roughly 1.8 miles “through creeks, construction and jungle” before she was finally found in a nearby housing development, according to a Facebook post from Liz Wheelihan Friese.
Friese said Liam appeared glad to be home after the long adventure, which ended on June 3.
Once back, the tortoise was treated to a bath, a large head of garden lettuce that she quickly devoured, and a night’s rest in her indoor tortoise enclosure, Friese wrote.
“We can’t thank everyone enough for working so hard to find our girl and get her home safely!!!!” Friese said in the post.
Friese added that recent heavy rain likely helped Liam escape by making it easier for her to get out of her enclosure.
Liam is recognizable because her shell scutes — the hard, typically geometric scales that form a protective layer of a turtle or tortoise shell — are not uniform, and she has a dent on the side of her shell due to her previous owner’s neglect.
She weighs 50 pounds, the Friese family told FOX4KC.
Friese told KVS12 that she was grateful Liam could bring people together.
“Talk about bringing people together that a little rescue tortoise with a screwy shell could bring so many people,” she said.
