NAPERVILLE SUN (Illinois) 19 September 06 Bob the tortoise is home - Lost pet found in neighbor's garage (Tim Waldorf)
Naperville: Bob Berkowicz is back where he belongs, thanks in part to a broken water main at Gregory Middle School.
Don't know Bob Berkowicz, you say?
A handsome photo of him is featured on the fliers his family had distributed all over Knoch Knolls subdivision since he went missing Friday evening.
"Reward: Lost Red-foot Tortoise," the flier says. "Our tortoise is approximately the size of a grapefruit (7˝ - 8 inches). Very gentle, does not bite. He likes to hide in dark places under shrubs, trees, flowers or decks... He may be in the general vicinity, but does travel quite quickly for a tortoise."
The Berkowicz family — Walter and Julie and their sons Wally, 16, Paul, 13, and Marc, 8 — offered a $50 reward to anyone who found Bob, who's been part of their family for almost three years.
But they were willing to pay much more to track down their tortoise.
They actually put down a nonrefundable deposit to secure the services of a pricey San Diego pet detective who, by chance, was visiting family in Indianapolis and was willing to bring her trained search dogs to Naperville to lead the search.
"We had a family meeting Sunday night, and we said, 'Do you guys really want to go that far and have somebody over here with dogs?'" Julie Berkowicz asked. "And they were like, 'Yeah! Whatever it takes.'"
Depending upon the extent of a search, pet detective services range from $200 to $1,400, plus hotel and travel expenses. Julie didn't want to disclose how much the family paid the detective just to reserve a search time.
"I was fortunate to be able to call her this morning and say, 'Guess what. He's found,'" Julie said.
Luke Manimala, Paul Berkowicz's friend and the family's neighbor, returned home Monday morning after learning that classes had been canceled at Gregory because of a water main break. When he opened the garage door, there sat Bob, in the middle of the floor.
"He was right in the middle," Julie said. "He waited until everybody was gone, and he came out."
This, after an exhaustive weekend search failed to locate the cold-blooded, four-legged fugitive.
"We were looking everywhere. We ripped everything apart," Julie said, noting that they removed every board from the top of their back yard deck, and cleaned up all of the brush around their home in hopes of finding Bob. "My husband was right. He said he's within a hundred yards, and I said, 'Oh no! He's probably all the way to Old Saw Mill (subdivision) by now!' But he was right. He stuck pretty close."
Until Monday morning, Bob's last known whereabouts was his roughly 10-foot by 10-foot pen in the Berkowicz's back yard flower bed. But he wasn't there Friday evening when Paul went to bring him indoors, out of the cool night air. Somehow, a small hole had been ripped in the chicken wire confines of his pen, and that hole allowed Bob to make a break for it.
Red-footed tortoises, which have become popular family pets, are native to the tropical forests and grasslands in northern South America. So, when the weather dips below 70 degrees, Bob stays indoors.
The Berkowicz family feared that the chilly weather over the weekend would kill him, or that someone would find him, mistake him for a turtle, and release him in deep water, where he'd drown because he's a tortoise, and he can't swim.
"We were all really upset about it," Julie said.
Now, though, Bob Berkowicz is back where he belongs.
"We've been trying to warm him up," Julie said as her sons fed him shreds of lettuce. "And he's been eating like a fiend."
Bob the tortoise is home