When I was very young, we had amongst other animals, a pet tortoise. She was not a bought pet, as almost none of our pets were, but we had found her on our mountain and brought her back home. There was an abundance of tortoises in the mountain at that time, some really really old and huge and heavy, reaching a hundred years old. Our tortoise was a young one, maybe five to seven years old when we found her and we kept her for five years. She ate lettuce leaves, fruit, vegetables, some flowers and fresh cut grass. She lived on the balcony in the summer and in the house in the winter. I am not sure how much "pet like" she felt, but we handled her a lot and she came to eat when it was her time to be fed. My grandmother of course, always advocated her opinion of captured animals and how we should really give them their freedom back.
One day, I came back from school and I could not find the tortoise anywhere. I searched the house upside down and she was still nowhere to be found. I was starting to suspect my grandmother had released her, when I thought of looking on the small balcony at the back of the kitchen. This balcony was normally off limits for the tortoise because its railing started directly from the floor, creating a gap from where the tortoise could potentially fall to the garden, three floors below and die. But on that day someone had forgotten the kitchen door open and the balcony door open too, so that I found to my horror the tortoise half suspended on the very edge of the balcony floor. Half her body was already above thin air and her other half a body and back legs were still on the floor. It looked like she was considering jumping off the edge as if to dive in a pool. She was slightly moving her front legs too so that I had to act quickly to save her. But I was so petrified to touch her in case I pushed her that I stayed there looking at her for a while before I eventually picked her up. My grandmother of course said the tortoise was so very desperate for freedom she was considering jumping off. They must have some feeling for the danger of heights though, as she never did jump.
Not long after that we took the tortoise back where we had found her, on the same spot on the mountain. We took with us some lettuce and fruit, but she very lazily wandered off, stretching her legs as she went. She looked very at ease back there, which gave me hope she could fit in very well again. I remember the tremendous appetite this tortoise had, maybe because she was young and growing, her sharp beak-like mouth and her pink wet tongue. I used to splash her with water in the summer and she loved that. The next summer some of the worst fires hit Athens and our mountain did not escape them. The strong August winds made it very hard to control the flames and there were casualties too. I remember shouting at my grandmother about sending the tortoise back in the mountain to die; I was very upset. My grandmother said that it was very difficult to ever know what is best for wild animals, to interfere with their lives or not to. You might be thinking that you are helping them to begin with, but maybe you are just making decisions whose consequences you are not equipped to predict.
And with that I was left looking periodically for the tortoise at the area which was not burnt completely, hoping she stuck to that area and did not wander very far off, towards the part of the forest that got burnt. That was always possible. Meanwhile, last week, Aretousa and I visited my father, whose neighbour has a very small garden, measuring no more than a metre and a half by a metre and a half. In that small garden there is a lemon tree, an olive tree, two rose bushes and many dried out bushes and weeds. In the winter the neighbour is away and no one has access to that garden. But in the summer the small garden is open to everyone and everyone around visits to take fruit peels to an old tortoise who lives there. This tortoise is around forty to fifty years old and has been in that patch of land for as long as all the neighbours can remember. We are not sure what she eats during the winter; maybe rose petals and green bush leaves. She does not hibernate properly, as Greek winters are mild. What she is lacking in food in the winter, she makes up for in the summer.
Aretousa and I fed her too, watermelon and melon peels. The first two days she devoured everything with a huge huge appetite. We splashed her with water to cool her down, just like I used to do with my tortoise. The third day she was so full she did not eat any more food, but just snoozed in a shady corner under the concrete stairs. I was half thinking maybe it is too small a patch there for her and she probably never had much contact with other tortoises. I thought maybe she would be happier in the forest of the area, not further than a hundred metres away. And then I thought better about it and did not suggest moving her. She has been there for all those years, so better not to gamble with her luck.
At least her summers are full of sweet fruit and children stroking her and that lasts for half of the year. The other half of the year must be a tortoise-only time, no humans around, a hard time food wise, but probably a bit of a relief otherwise.
Like hedgehogs, tortoises can retract their limbs and head and tail when danger approaches. The main cause of their death nowadays in Greece, is getting run over by a car. Foxes used to get a lot of the hedgehogs by peeing on them. The ammonia in urine caused them to unroll from their protective ball shape position and so be vulnerable again. This does not work with tortoises, who are protected from the ammonia in urine by their shell. Tortoises were vulnerable though to birds of prey, especially eagles, who catch them and fly off with them, proceeding to letting them go from a great height so that the shell breaks and they can eat them. There is a legend that the great tragedian, Aeschylus, spent many of the last years of his life outdoors, trying to avoid a prophecy that he would be killed by a falling object; only to be killed by a tortoise an eagle let go above his head, mistaking his shining bald scalp for a rock. Το πεπρωμένον φυγείν αδύνατον (To pepromenon phugein adunaton). It is impossible to escape what is destined!
Below is a pattern with two tortoises, my old pet and the one we just met (my old one should be reaching forty years old if she is still around). I drew it so that it could be repeated, creating an effect similar to those seen in wall papers, wrapping papers and curtains.
One day, I came back from school and I could not find the tortoise anywhere. I searched the house upside down and she was still nowhere to be found. I was starting to suspect my grandmother had released her, when I thought of looking on the small balcony at the back of the kitchen. This balcony was normally off limits for the tortoise because its railing started directly from the floor, creating a gap from where the tortoise could potentially fall to the garden, three floors below and die. But on that day someone had forgotten the kitchen door open and the balcony door open too, so that I found to my horror the tortoise half suspended on the very edge of the balcony floor. Half her body was already above thin air and her other half a body and back legs were still on the floor. It looked like she was considering jumping off the edge as if to dive in a pool. She was slightly moving her front legs too so that I had to act quickly to save her. But I was so petrified to touch her in case I pushed her that I stayed there looking at her for a while before I eventually picked her up. My grandmother of course said the tortoise was so very desperate for freedom she was considering jumping off. They must have some feeling for the danger of heights though, as she never did jump.
Not long after that we took the tortoise back where we had found her, on the same spot on the mountain. We took with us some lettuce and fruit, but she very lazily wandered off, stretching her legs as she went. She looked very at ease back there, which gave me hope she could fit in very well again. I remember the tremendous appetite this tortoise had, maybe because she was young and growing, her sharp beak-like mouth and her pink wet tongue. I used to splash her with water in the summer and she loved that. The next summer some of the worst fires hit Athens and our mountain did not escape them. The strong August winds made it very hard to control the flames and there were casualties too. I remember shouting at my grandmother about sending the tortoise back in the mountain to die; I was very upset. My grandmother said that it was very difficult to ever know what is best for wild animals, to interfere with their lives or not to. You might be thinking that you are helping them to begin with, but maybe you are just making decisions whose consequences you are not equipped to predict.
And with that I was left looking periodically for the tortoise at the area which was not burnt completely, hoping she stuck to that area and did not wander very far off, towards the part of the forest that got burnt. That was always possible. Meanwhile, last week, Aretousa and I visited my father, whose neighbour has a very small garden, measuring no more than a metre and a half by a metre and a half. In that small garden there is a lemon tree, an olive tree, two rose bushes and many dried out bushes and weeds. In the winter the neighbour is away and no one has access to that garden. But in the summer the small garden is open to everyone and everyone around visits to take fruit peels to an old tortoise who lives there. This tortoise is around forty to fifty years old and has been in that patch of land for as long as all the neighbours can remember. We are not sure what she eats during the winter; maybe rose petals and green bush leaves. She does not hibernate properly, as Greek winters are mild. What she is lacking in food in the winter, she makes up for in the summer.
At least her summers are full of sweet fruit and children stroking her and that lasts for half of the year. The other half of the year must be a tortoise-only time, no humans around, a hard time food wise, but probably a bit of a relief otherwise.
Like hedgehogs, tortoises can retract their limbs and head and tail when danger approaches. The main cause of their death nowadays in Greece, is getting run over by a car. Foxes used to get a lot of the hedgehogs by peeing on them. The ammonia in urine caused them to unroll from their protective ball shape position and so be vulnerable again. This does not work with tortoises, who are protected from the ammonia in urine by their shell. Tortoises were vulnerable though to birds of prey, especially eagles, who catch them and fly off with them, proceeding to letting them go from a great height so that the shell breaks and they can eat them. There is a legend that the great tragedian, Aeschylus, spent many of the last years of his life outdoors, trying to avoid a prophecy that he would be killed by a falling object; only to be killed by a tortoise an eagle let go above his head, mistaking his shining bald scalp for a rock. Το πεπρωμένον φυγείν αδύνατον (To pepromenon phugein adunaton). It is impossible to escape what is destined!
Below is a pattern with two tortoises, my old pet and the one we just met (my old one should be reaching forty years old if she is still around). I drew it so that it could be repeated, creating an effect similar to those seen in wall papers, wrapping papers and curtains.
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