You were lucky to keep that Gopher alive for 3 years. They do notoriously poorly in captivity (I lost a few myself in the early days). I, also, used to stalk Woolco (but it was Woolworth's Five and Ten back then) when you had your choice between painted and unpainted RES hatchlings with a few false maps and a rare cooter that I would always snap up. The real tragedy came in the sixties when they brought in Podocnemis unifilis hatchlings by the thousands from South America and many died in transit.