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ARIZONA REPUBLIC (Phoenix) 07 June 06 Tortoise checkups a slow job (John Faherty)
Tuesday morning at 8, the reptile handlers started the very difficult process of weighing all the tortoises at the Phoenix Zoo.
The job was tricky because tortoises may not be fast - fables never lie - but they can be very heavy, and they are a lot stronger than you might think.
Watching it all with a disdainful eye were the zoo elephants.
The elephants were unhappy because tortoises are so big that the zoo staff needed to weigh them on the elephant scales. That meant they had to be placed in their very large cages during a time when they would normally be out sunning themselves. You get the feeling they will remember this for a long time.
The biggest tortoise at the zoo is Alidaber, an Aldabra tortoise weighing 647 pounds.
It took eight zoo staffers to pick him up, load him onto the back of a super-sized flat-bed golf cart and take him over to the elephant exhibit where the scale is.
That looked like the hard part. But it turns out the off-and-on part of the tortoise transport was just the beginning. The degree of difficulty goes way up when you try to keep one of the prehistoric-looking creatures still during the short but bumpy drive.
Some of these big clumsy animals were very intent on getting off, and it took as many people to hold them down as it did to load them on.
One keeper got a nasty bump and abrasion on her leg when Alidaber shifted forward after the cart hit a bump. She was taken to the doctor but will be fine.
On first glance, you may be fooled into thinking tortoises do not have a lot of personality. But that is not true according to Paula Swanson, manager of reptiles at the zoo.
"People act like they are just big rocks with legs," Swanson said. "But they have plenty of personality. Some are friendly. Some are grouchy. When you work closely with them, you just fall in love."
The weigh-in is part of an annual physical for each of the 1,300 animals at the zoo. The tortoises will also have their eyes, heart and breathing checked, and blood will be drawn and analyzed.
The annual physicals are very important for tortoises because they can easily hide a sickness.
"Because of their nature, and their large shell, a tortoise may not show he is feeling poorly until it is too late," said Geoffrey Hall, executive vice president of Living Collections at the zoo.
By the end of the morning the staff had weighed all seven animals, three Galapagos tortoises and four Aldabra tortoises. They had all either gained weight or maintained their heft over the past two years and appeared to be in good health.
Eventually Indu, an Asian elephant, settled down and got used to the fact that she wasn't the center of attention. But she remained nonplussed with all the excitement about their girth. Of course, Indu weighs in at about 8,600 pounds and is not easily impressed.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0607b2tortise0607.html