Adventurous Toby's Day out @ 109 ...

This post is about Toby escaping out of the backgate in Kent !!! We have read about ‘great escapes’- not only of those escaping high security prisons – also of animals leaving their confined enclosures.  Some time back, the missing Tiger of Vandalur made news in Chennai; fear gripped the village in Vandalur and the residents, mostly daily wage labourers, spent sleepless nights.  In 2011, villagers were on alert after a python escaped from its enclosure at the zoo. The villagers also have to put up with monkeys and snakes in the surrounding wooded area.   A few years earlier, there was this marsh crocodile tapping the gate of a home.  Chennai is not alone, away Gurgaon forest department officials found the body of a 12- year-old leopard in Sehrawan village on NH-8 near Manesar. There have been many cases of animals escaping zoos in foreign countries too; in June 2015, flash  flooding in the Georgian capital killed up to 12 people including three who work at the zoo.  Flooding destroyed enclosures at Tbilisi Zoo in Georgia allowing more than 30 dangerous animals to roam free - tigers, lions, jaguars, wolves, jackals and a hippo  escaped - residents of  Tbilisi  were warned to stay indoors; a mighty hippo was eventually cornered in the main square of Tbilisi and was subdued by being shot with a tranquiliser gun. Some were less fortunate and died on the roads ! Might surprise some – that tortoises do run races !! - Turtle racing is an event in which participants typically place turtles in the center of a circle and watch them walk around until one of them crosses out of the circle ~ and some place bets on them too........ incidentally, the Usain Bolt of tortoises is - Bertie who covered 18ft in a world record 19.59 seconds.  There was another – a 150 pound tortoise given a chase by Police of Alhambara. This post is about Toby escaping out of the backgate in Kent !!! - Toby was picked up by a driver on a nearby road and taken to a rescue centre… Six months later he was re-homed with a couple in Margate - 22 miles away Toby, a tortoise was reunited with his owner after spending nearly a year on the run and even finding a new home - at the age of 109. Owner Wendy Stokes, 74, had given up hope of ever seeing Toby again after he escaped from her garden 11 months ago. …. ..piecing together his escapades over the last year, it looks like it  was  quite an adventure.  It is reported that he wandered through a gate in her garden and headed for the open road where he was picked up by a passing driver concerned for his safety and taken to a nearby animal rescue center.Six months down,  he was re-homed with a couple living in Margate, Kent, 22 miles away from Wendy's farm in West Hougham. The couple, who could just about make out the word 'Stokes' written in white paint on his shell, felt they needed to find out who Tony belonged to. Though no. had been written, it had faded in course of time. With nothing else to go on, they decided to call every Stokes in Kent listed in the phonebook.Eventually came across a delighted Wendy, who immediately arranged to collect him.She's had Toby since the 1980s when he was given to her by her late great aunt  ~and a happy ending to the story as Toby returned home, a full 11 months after his amazing, if a little slow, adventure. With regards – S. Sampathkumar
21^st July 2015. photo and news source : www.dailymail.co.uk