A 200-pound mystery popped up at Dallas Animal Services last week.
The shelter was alerted to a giant stray sulcata tortoise roaming the streets of Dallas on September 19. After taking him in, DAS staff named him Wendell and posted a photo on Facebook to try and find his owner.
As if things couldn’t get weirder, about 20 people called in saying Wendell might be their lost tortoise. While this begs the question of how many hundred-pound stray tortoises might be showing up at DAS in the near future, the oddity of the post helped give it some traction, bringing it to the attention of Wendell’s true owner.
“If it wasn’t for everybody sharing, I never would’ve seen [the photo],” Gabriel Fernandez told WFAA. Lorenzo, as he is actually called, had done what sulcata tortoises do best and dug his way out from under the fence of Fernandez’s home five weeks prior.
While there is no telling what Lorenzo got up to during his stint on the lam, it was undoubtedly nothing compared to the drama he might have witnessed while residing at Joe Exotic’s zoo — his previous home.
“Oh yeah, that’s funny. I got him from Jeff Lowe that was on the Tiger King,” Fernandez said.
Speaking to The Dallas Morning News, Fernandez explained that he had driven to Oklahoma in 2021 after seeing an ad that tortoises were for sale.
Lowe had taken ownership of Exotic’s animals after the ostentatious big cat keeper was incarcerated.
“It was kind of crazy,” Fernandez recalled. Making the connection to the famed Netflix documentary, Fernandez ended up buying three tortoises, including Lorenzo.
Now Lorenzo is back with his fellow tortoises and other exotic friends, such as a spider monkey, owned by Fernandez and his family.
The stray tortoise is one of several unusual residents of DAS lately.
As recently covered in The Dallas Express, DAS staff had to pivot and find a creative solution to take in six horses seized in south Dallas in an animal cruelty case.
After recovering from malnourishment in a dog play yard these past few weeks, the six horses were transported to a rescue in Houston called Habitat for Horses on Tuesday.
DAS typically takes in stray dogs and cats, with its shelter struggling with overcrowding for months.
Animals available for adoption through DAS can be found here, with BISSELL Pet Foundation’s #EmptyTheShelters initiative seeing fees waived and many other perks for adopters between October 1 and 15.