I've seen a $300-500 "re-homing" fee for the "free" tortoise. Every once in a while one will show up at a county or city animal shelter here in Southern CA. There are literally a dozen people fighting over them and they are usually pyramided and sometimes in pretty bad shape. No home inspections or ridiculous contracts and the fee is about $25 last I checked.This comment on shelters is dead on accurate, happening everywhere that dog breeding is regulated best I can tell. We went to a shelter in PA once on a friend’s recommendation. They wanted a huge fee, home visit, follow up visits, and a contract saying they could repo the dog at any time if they found something they didn’t like. I told them they were insane, then told my friends more or less the same. No surprise, they had plenty of dogs available that they “couldn’t” find homes for.
There is a hidden agenda with these rescues / shelters. They are both trying to commercialize the rescue business under the guise of being a non profit, and force their own (often politically influenced) mindset on others by means of these policies.
Here there are regular want ads for adult sulcatas, we are nowhere close to having a surplus. I think southern CA might have a slight excess and the only thing stopping it from being equalized is the fact that it’s not practical to ship adults elsewhere.