Saving tortoise by capturing tortoise

Have you had a dog, or a cat as a pet? If you were an extreme pet-lover, when your dog, or cat died, you would have felt deep sorrow as your family member dies. But now, you don’t need to worry about this situation anymore, if you like unusual animals like tortoises, because they generally outlive people. In this article, “Pet Desert Tortoises Ease Out Of Hibernation”, the author, Julia Glick, tells about desert tortoise as a pet, and happiness with tortoise by taking care of a tortoise in our life. Rodi, a desert tortoise as a pet, has given enough pleasure to his ex-owner, Emily McClean’s parents, and his owner now, Emily McClean, too. And, the author says this in this article, “One of the region’s most unusual pets, the tortoises are threatened here in their native habitat, but abundant in captivity” (Grick, 2007, para. 2) and “in captivity, desert tortoises can thrive” (Grick, 2007, para. 8).

The author’s argument seems not to make sense, to fight against global disasters like disappearing wildlife by capturing them, under the rule that we should protect their habitats from being destroyed. But, by inferring from the author’s thinking, we can change and develop our mind into another direction to solve the tortoise extinction problem like this: we can protect the tortoise by capturing it, and having the tortoise as a pet can be more useful for our life than trying to maintain the tortoise in the wild for three reasons.

First, if we can control and make an elaborate habitat well for the tortoise, and take care of them, the artificial habitat by humans’ hand is a better place than a destroyed wild habitat. According to the main article above, Rodi, a pet tortoise living in an elaborate surrounding with people, is living in a great habitat without any anxiety about extinction, because his owner has taken care of him as their lovely pet (Grick, 2007). Because the tortoise is humans’ pet as a dog, or cat would be, their owners will feed them on time and protect them from drought and shortage of water by providing proper materials. Moreover, if they have a severe disease, they can meet animal doctors and be healed more easily. It means that it will be an automatic life-support system at humans’ side to protect them.

Second, we can make the desert tortoise as a pet to keep proper tortoise’s population, because it is expensive to save tortoises in natural habitat against wildfire, drought and desertification, or relocate them to a new place. Tortoise’s habitat is gradually disappearing by drought, and severe wildfire in Arizona, and many efforts are being made to save the natural tortoise. But it hasn’t worked well, because it is so difficult and expensive to change the natural environment, and it requires responsibility of many communities, a nation, and even global effort, not individual. Therefore, we can find a solution, focusing on individuals’ effort like taking care of them as pets instead of changing the whole bad environment of the tortoise resulted from severe natural disaster like drought, shortage of water, and desertification.

Finally, tortoise as a pet can be useful for our life because they can be good friends for a long time. According to the main article above, the pet tortoise is called “recyclable pet”, because they get descended down in the family. For example, many tortoises were owned by their owner’s parents or grandparents before, and they had become their friends for a long time through generations. Unlike other pets, they have the unique advantage of outliving humans because they can live over 80 years, and this feature gives humans a closer relationship and feeling like love, and attraction. Moreover, in another article entitled, “After 62 years pet tortoise Sally-Ann goes missing” (The Sunderland Echo, 2007), we can see a family’s sadness at losing a tortoise that is 60 years old. And Sheila Parkinson, 81, an owner of the tortoise, and her disabled daughter, Lynne, 52, looked for the tortoise for a long time with their family, friends, and neighbors. It shows that they have cherished the pet much. The endangered desert tortoise in the wild desert is just not useful.

While the desert tortoise is disappearing, and their habitats are being destroyed, can we save the desert tortoise against the obstacle they face by capturing them? Even though this solution looks like nonsense, it quite makes sense because diverting a stereotype into a new idea is so worthwhile to try to solve an unfixable problem like a global issue. As a result, we can protect tortoises by capturing them, because elaborate and artificial habitat is made by humans, is safer and more trustworthy than a deteriorating wild habitat and it costs less than countering the whole natural disaster like a disappearing habitat. Moreover, tortoise as a pet can be a great friend to many people, providing a unique value. It will be a pleasurable experience to see tortoises that emerge from a doghouse and padded boxes, after their hibernation in your backyard.

Reference:

Grick, J. (2007, April 2). Pet desert tortoises ease out of hibernation. The Press Enterprise. Retrieved June 10, 2007, from LexisNexis.

After 62 years pet tortoise Sally-Ann goes missing. (2007, March 7). The Sunderland Echo. Retrieved June 10, 2007, from LexisNexis.