EAST ANGLIAN DAILY TIMES (Suffolk, UK) 17 October 07 Tortoises fitted with tracking device (James Hore)

An animal lover has shelled out for radio tracker devices to help her keep tabs on her tribe of 60 runaway tortoises.

Jane Williams got tired of hunting her garden for each of her reptile escapees before she came up with a hi-tech solution.

The 48-year-old now uses a handheld scanner to hunt down her troop of tortoises which each have a tiny tracking device pinned to their shells with a removable sticky pad.

Ms Williams said: “I think they are absolutely fantastic. Contrary to popular belief tortoises can actually move quite fast.

“They are real escape artists. They can climb walls, hide in bushes and bury themselves. We find them in all sorts of unusual places. It is amazing how difficult it can be to find them.”

Ms Williams, who runs the Tortoise South East sanctuary from her home near Colchester, has taken in more than 60 tortoises ranging from 10 to 112 years old and are now her pets.

She gives talks, lectures and advice on the reptiles and puts owners looking to re-home tortoises in touch with people who want one of the reptiles.

To keep an eye on her dozens of pets in her large garden Ms Williams uses a Loc8tor radio tracking system.

She sticks tiny tracking devices, the size of a broad bean, onto the reptile's shells and when it's time for them to be put back in their vivariums she uses the bleeping handset to guide her into each of her pets.

She said: “Every year we get calls from people reporting their tortoises missing, particularly when it's warm and the males get really driven to mate.

“They will go out looking for a female and they can walk several kilometres in a day.

“One woman drained her koi carp pond because she was worried her tortoise had gone in, her garden was awash with 300 gallons of water but the tortoise had actually buried itself in a hole in the garden.”

She added: “With this system you can also set up a boundary around your garden and if the tortoise manages to escape it automatically sets off an alarm.

“I think these trackers are a great solution, they would also be a great idea for dogs too. People get incredibly attached to their pets and it's awful when they go missing.”



http://www.eadt.co.uk/content/eadt/news/story.aspx?brand=EADOnline&category=News&tBrand=EADOnline&tCategory=news&itemid=IPED16 Oct 2007 23:22:22:847

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