{"id":857378,"date":"2026-08-14T04:14:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T04:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/857378\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T04:14:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T04:14:11","slug":"look-escaped-tortoise-found-after-2-weeks-over-12-miles-from-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/857378\/","title":{"rendered":"Look: Escaped tortoise found after 2 weeks, over 12 miles from home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aug. 13 (UPI) — A 15-year-old African spurred tortoise who escaped from her owner’s Manitoba home was found two weeks later at a nature preserve more than 12 miles from home.<\/p>\n

The Oak Hammock Marsh nature preserve in Manitoba said on social media<\/a> that officials received multiple reports of tortoise sightings on the property, which struck them as strange, as tortoises are not native to Canada.\n<\/p>\n

“We thought maybe people were mistaking a snapping turtle because we do get those,” Gillian Malchuk, a nature interpreter at Oak Hammock Marsh, told CTV News<\/a>. “So snapping turtles, painted turtles, any number of things that we were maybe thinking it could be. Maybe just a big rock in some circumstances.”<\/p>\n

Malchuk said preserve employees changed their minds when one visitor managed to snap a photo of what was clearly an African spurred tortoise, a species native to the Sahara Desert.\n<\/p>\n

“We all knew that she wasn’t where she was supposed to be and it was probably not the easiest time for her out there. So I think the initial reaction was surprise and maybe a little disbelief, but then a big effort to go out and find her,” Malchuck said.<\/p>\n

Staff searched the grounds for two days before the tortoise turned up in the parking lot.<\/p>\n

Malchuk took the tortoise to her home until staff were able to identify the animal’s owner.<\/p>\n

The tortoise, named Molly, had been missing for two weeks from a home about 12.4 miles away from Oak Hammock Marsh.<\/p>\n

Malchuk said it isn’t impossible that Molly walked the entire way.<\/p>\n

“I wouldn’t put it past her. I did get to spend some time with Molly and she’s a pretty strong spirit and quite the Houdini in my yard,” she said.<\/p>\n

Malchuck posited another theory that she believes to be more likely.<\/p>\n

“I think probably some good Samaritan thought she belonged in the wetland, saw her on a highway somewhere, picked her up and brought her over here, thinking [they] were doing good, just without realizing this wasn’t really her habitat,” she said.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aug. 13 (UPI) — A 15-year-old African spurred tortoise who escaped from her owner’s Manitoba home was found…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":857379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[2837,49,48,18474,32198,66,32199,323],"class_list":["post-857378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-animals","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-funny","tag-odd","tag-science","tag-weird","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=857378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}