HOUSTON CHRONICLE (Texas) 03 June 04 African tortoise the subject of Montrose custody battle - Neighbors trade accusations of theft, neglect (Mary Lee Grant)

A giant tortoise has become the center of a custody battle between neighbors in Montrose.

When Bruce Delaquil was working in his yard on Saulnier Street earlier this spring, his giant African tortoise, Chloe, was taking her morning exercise.

Delaquil had a custom of taking Chloe on a daily walk, keeping an eye on the 60-pound tortoise as she ambled down the sidewalk.

But on this morning, Delaquil looked up from his work and found the lumbering tortoise was missing.

He searched up and down the street, hunting desperately for the 6-year-old tortoise, which he had bought at a local flea market when she was a baby.

"I thought she couldn't have gone far and I would find her soon," he said.

He stopped each neighbor that he passed, knocked on doors and buttonholed the mailman, but to no avail. He called and yelled Chloe's name, digging through weeds in empty lots, hoping to find her.

As the morning wore on, he posted signs with her photo on it.

Later that evening, his wife, Rissa, went to a nearby pet store to post a lost turtle sign.

Employees told her that a woman had been in the store asking what to feed a giant turtle. The African tortoise is very rare in America, Rissa Delaquil said.

The Delaquils were alerted that someone had Chloe, but had no idea how to find her.

"We cried and cried," Rissa Delaquil said. "We loved her so much, and had raised her from when she was tiny."

But they didn't give up. Weeks passed, and they continued to return to the pet store to ask employees if they had any other clues. It was their only hope.

Finally, employees told them that a woman who had come into the store to buy a large amount of turtle food had applied for a discount card. They gave the Delaquils the address, which was only a few houses away from theirs.

The Delaquils went to the house, and asked the couple who answered the door if they had the turtle, according to police reports. They responded that they didn't.

But Bruce Delaquil suspected that the giant reptile was hidden in the house. He climbed the fence to their back yard, entered through the unlocked back door, and found Chloe in the bath tub, he reported.

He lifted her over his head and walked out with her, he said.

He thought that would be the end of the story, but it wasn't. The neighbors who had found the turtle claimed it was theirs and called asking for it back, he said. They claimed Delaquil had stolen it.

A few days later, Houston Humane Society investigators rang the doorbell at the Delaquils' house and asked to see the tortoise. They said that the couple down the street had reported them for inhumane treatment of a turtle and turtle abuse.

The couple could not be reached for comment, but Humane Society investigators told the Delaquils that their neighbors had taken Chloe to be examined while she was staying with them, and were told she wasn't receiving proper nutrition and her shell was too soft.

The Delaquils maintain that the turtle grew weak during its stay in the neighbor's bath tub. They showed the investigators Chloe's large veterinarian bills, her spacious outdoor living quarters, and her diet of fresh vegetables and papaya in hopes of proving she had had a good life with them.

The Humane Society has not pressed charges against either party, but the Delaquils, who had not previously reported the incident to the police, have since done so.

"We couldn't believe they had the nerve to report us for tortoise abuse after they stole our tortoise," Rissa Delaquil said.

In the meantime, Chloe has undergone a change. The vet told the Delaquils the tortoise is a boy, and its name has been changed to Pokey.
African tortoise the subject of Montrose custody battle

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