Missing tortoise reunited with owners a year later
OAKVILLE — Martin the tortoise just wrote his own children’s storybook. If he could write, that is — or more importantly — if he could talk.
The tortoise — missing from his Oakville home for almost a year — was reunited with his owners, Rachelle Green and her husband, Daniel Kneblewski, recently.
Green — who plastered the town with flyers when her beloved pet escaped under her backyard fence on July 11, 2017, while she was gardening — said she received a phone call from the Oakville and Milton Humane Society asking whether Martin had ever been found.
The woman told her that someone had brought in a tortoise that was the same size, sex and possibly a Hermann breed, which is what Martin is.
“I thought that they wanted me to adopt this tortoise until she told me that he was found by a man gardening about two blocks down the road from where we live,” she said.
Mid afternoon and at work, Green said she became hysterical and immediately drove home from Mississauga, where she works for an electrical contractor in project management.
When she arrived, she was taken to a room where the tortoise had been placed in a small aquarium. One of Martin’s shell sections had a small birth defect, and as she looked him over, she saw that first old scar in his shell and she burst into tears, realizing this was indeed Martin.
Green said her newly fenced yard and GPS tracking device will prevent him from going missing again, and she’s just thrilled that Martin is back home, ready for another season of gardening.