One giant tortoise please. Do you giftwrap?

After the exchange of souls with the giant tortoises at Reptile Gardens, I entered a phase of irrepressible, unrealistic, inspirational imaginings.


Was there some way, I wondered, that I could use my nearly nothing-square-foot backyard to operate some sort of rescue for these amazing creatures? Well, no. This did not keep me from putting “giant tortoise” at the top of my Christmas list that year; or considering what my mother would think if I asked to keep a dozen or so on her property up here in northern Wyoming.

The giant tortoise is an endangered species, so you can’t just order one on-line or wheel one out of The House of Tortoises or something.

When Charles Darwin visited the Galapagos Islands (1835) off the coast of Ecuador, it is believed there were 250,000 giant tortoises in existence. Due to the sailors of the times preferring their practical use as a fresh meat source on long voyages (they were stackable in the hold and didn’t eat much); plus the introduction of cats, dogs and pigs (and humans) into their habitat, the species is down to about 15,000 today. They are a protected species, and much care is being taken to maintain and build up their numbers.

I gradually down-sized my dreams to that of keeping a smaller tortoise. I had earlier entertained the idea of keeping a tarantula, but my wife found the notion to be a little beyond her comfort zone. It took a lot of convincing to beat that scheme dead.

I began mentioning the ownership of a tortoise as something I would like to do, but the conversation rarely went past, “That’s nice, dear,” as if I had said I wanted to sprout wings and fly, but I didn’t know what shoes to wear.

To appease me, my wife got me a very nice tortoise figurine, brassy and bejeweled, with a hinged shell that opened into a nifty little compartment to keep, I suppose, my intention of owning a live tortoise.

The back of my mind is a tricky place. It turns out that the notion of acquiring a tortoise swam around with the melodies, the prayers and the music that also occupy this area. Sometimes, like the mysterious 8-Ball game that offers up in its dark window blue-white prophesies, such as, “Ask again later,” the back of my mind sends these ideas back up to the front, where they annoy me until I do something about them.

Sure enough, the suggestion of owning a tortoise came floating up to the surface again. What was I to do?