Beyond the pale

Natural History, Sept, 2002 by H. Robert Bustard

In a large garden in a small town in central Scotland, I breed several types of tortoises--a feat deemed well-nigh impossible by some of my southern English colleagues, who consider Scotland to be just a stone's throw from the Arctic Circle. My tortoises, however, are not just fit and healthy. They are also very active and rather bright, as one individual impressed upon me last summer.

My tortoises wander freely within large enclosures separated by wooden fencing that is low enough for me to step over but high enough, supposedly, to keep the animals within bounds. One morning in June, as I was checking and feeding my livestock, I noticed a female Hermann's tortoise (Testudo hermanni) basking happily in the area designated for the sulcata tortoises (Geochelone sulcata). This struck me as odd, because the fence between the Hermanns' and the sulcatas' areas is relatively high, the sulcata being a very large tortoise. I duly replaced the errant female in her own neighborhood and did a quick check for holes or gaps around the enclosure boundary but found none.

Later that same day, enjoying my afternoon tea in the garden, I saw the same female heading for the corner where the two areas abut. I had recently done some work on this corner after one of my sulcata females discovered a novel way of scaling the fence--but that's another story. Suffice it to say that in order to raise a section of the fencing by an extra board-width, I had inserted a wooden post into the ground on the Hermanns' side. This post stood about four and a half inches from the corner of the pen--a distance wider by a couple of inches than the width of an adult Hermann's. The renovated corner was three boards high on one side and two boards high on the other.

As I watched, the female Hermann's marched right into the corner and stood up as tall as she could--about nine inches--on her hind legs. More than ten inches high on the three-board side, the fence was quite a challenge for the tortoise to scale, but that detail certainly didn't put her off. The bottom board on the lower, two-board side was not entirely in line with the others and jutted out a tiny fraction. She carefully placed her right hind foot on this little ledge and raised herself enough to get a none-too-secure hold on the very edge of the top board with her right front foot.

Fascinated, I wondered what she would do next. I could see no other footholds. Imagine my amazement when she started using what I can only describe as the kind of technique used by climbers to tackle a rock chimney. She braced her shell against the post and pushed upward, with her back legs scrambling and her front legs clinging. By alternately pushing and bracing, she managed to get herself well off the ground. But she was still facing the extra board I had added to the fence, and I couldn't see any way around that obstacle.

I was wrong. Undaunted by the (I thought) insurmountable piece of wood in front of her, she started to turn her whole body to the right, toward the side where there was no extra board. Now, though, she could not wedge herself between the post and the higher, third board and thus risked falling back down to ground level.

Persistence and tenacity, not to say downright stubbornness, are qualities that all tortoise owners will recognize. This female was no exception.

She fell back and tried again several times until, as I silently urged her on, she finally managed to get a toehold with her right front foot on top of the lower, two-board side of the corner. Then she pushed off the post with a hind foot and, bit by bit, edged her weight up and onto the top of the fence, whereupon she launched herself over and into her neighbors' paddock.

I have kept tortoises since I was a young boy and know they are notorious escape artists, finding openings where none appear to be. But I had never witnessed such a complicated and difficult escape routine--evidently rapidly learned--that was used to such good effect.

Although her area affords abundant food, shelter, companionship, places to bask, and everything else a Hermann's tortoise might want, this intrepid female continues to think the grass is greener on the other side and regularly tackles the climb, perhaps getting a little bit more efficient and quicker each time. Now, that might be an interesting study for future research ...

H. Robert Bustard is a Scottish herpetologist with a special interest in crocodilians and chelonians.