Pet tortoise shot and killed in Zionsville

Tom

The Dog Trainer
10 Year Member!
Platinum Tortoise Club
Joined
Jan 9, 2010
Messages
63,264
Location (City and/or State)
Southern California
Some people are backwards and stupid. Looks like both parties involved in this incident are not too bright.

Here's a quote from the tortoise's owner who also had a female and was keeping them as a pair: "She said her remaining tortoise, Daisy, can tell Merlin is gone.

"We've been trying to pay as much attention to her as possible... giving her extra love and attention," said Chapel. "She almost seems a little stir crazy at this point."

Stir crazy? Couldn't possibly be from all the fussing that she's not used to? Or might it have something to do with the fact that her living hell under the terror of this male is now over and she is free to move about the cabin without being assaulted at every turn. She probably is more active now that her oppressor has left the territory. I wonder if she didn't leave the yard the same way he did because she was hiding from him and trying to not be noticed.

Being that I work with a lot of ranchers and people who keep livestock, I might have a different outlook on this incident. I've known people who have had to shoot their neighbors animals for harassing their stock. One friend took the dead bodies of his lambs and kids(baby goats) over to the offending neighbors house and begged the neighbors to contain their dogs on their own property. He tried to have law enforcement and animal control intervene. No one would do anything. He did not want to shoot the dogs. He tried throwing rocks, bb guns, water hoses, etc… all to no avail. I think he was more patient than any reasonable person would have been. One day he rides over to the neighbors on his horse, scoped rifle in hand. He sees the neighbors and calmly tells them to go get their dogs off his property. They asked, "Where are they?!" He answered, "Laying outside my sheep pen." The woman started screaming and hollering profanities as she ran off to recover her dogs. He waited for her return. She found her dogs alive laying in the shade tied to the outside of the sheep pen, safe and sound. She came back over with her dogs, still on their rope leashes, in a huff. He recited the law that gave him every right to shoot her dogs the first time he found them on his property harassing his stock, and told her, "this is your last chance". Thankfully, the lady decided to put up a kennel and become a responsible dog owner, before she was no longer a dog owner at all. Her dogs literally dodged a bullet at the hands of a very patient and tolerant rancher.

Sounds like the guy in Indiana was not so patient and tolerant, be truth be told, that lady's tortoise should not have been on his property near his livestock. Shooting the tortoise was absolutely moronic and absurd, but right or wrong, the guy was within his legal rights.

Keep your tortoises contained, is the lesson I'm taking away from this one. And stay away from other people's livestock in Indiana too!
 

tglazie

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Joined
Jul 21, 2010
Messages
631
Location (City and/or State)
San Antonio, TX
That's a very good point, Tom. My uncle Scott and his friend Jim are neighbors, and when I was a kid, I remember one of Jim's dogs got free of the kennel (Jim had failed to lock and close it properly; one small mistake) and ran onto my uncle's property. The dog encountered the Nubian goats in the western most pen and tore those poor girls to shreds. When my uncle discovered this on his morning rounds, he put the dog down with the .22 he always carries to ward off coyotes. I remember worrying that Jim would be upset that we shot his dog, and my uncle responded simply, "You need to understand something. Out here, the livestock is how we survive. Something interferes with that, it can't be tolerated. Jim understands this." Sure enough, when my uncle and I drove to Jim's place with the bodies of the goats and dog in tow, Jim apologized to us and compensated my uncle for the goats. To those outside the ranching community, this may seem like barbarism, but most folks out here rely upon their animals as a source of income.

But yes, shooting the tortoise was stupid.

T.G.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tom

Bee62

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2016
Messages
11,981
Location (City and/or State)
Germany
@ Tom and
@tglazie

You both are right when dogs are involved. They can kill goats and sheep and other small animals, but a tortoise ???
The man who shot the tort was really not the brightest !
 

wellington

Well-Known Member
Moderator
10 Year Member!
Tortoise Club
Joined
Sep 6, 2011
Messages
49,658
Location (City and/or State)
Chicago, Illinois, USA
I don't believe in shooting animals because they may hurt someone's livestock. Sorry, it's not the animals fault! Sue the owners and make them pay for their stupidity. Do whatever it takes to make the owners pay, not the animal that is doing what animals do.
Pit bulls are a good example of owners stupidity. It's not the animal, it's the idiot owners. But everyone makes the dog pay for the owners stupidity. Start making owners pay, not the animals!

This "dangerous" tortoise should get justice for losing its life over human stupidity!
 
Joined
Aug 24, 2016
Messages
22
@ Tom and
@tglazie

You both are right when dogs are involved. They can kill goats and sheep and other small animals, but a tortoise ???
The man who shot the tort was really not the brightest !

To be fair, a lot of people really don't know much about tortoises. On forums just like this, there are people absolutely clueless about them.

Granted, the owner probably should have waited to see if the tortoise was an actual threat. I mean, as long as it wasn't hurting his livestock right then, he could have isolated it from his livestock and called animal control to have it removed. Killing it didn't seem necessary.

But as far as him thinking it's a threat to his livestock, how can I blame the dude? Does he deal with tortoises? Are they native wildlife in his area? Was he reasonably expected to know that the tortoise was a threat? Chances are that the guy probably never sees tortoises, so it's not unreasonable that he doesn't know the first thing about them and saw the tortoise as a POTENTIAL threat.

Still though, he didn't have to kill it. As long as it wasn't posing an IMMEDIATE threat to his livestock, then it seems like the non-lethal option would be preferable in this case.
 
Joined
Aug 24, 2016
Messages
22
I don't believe in shooting animals because they may hurt someone's livestock. Sorry, it's not the animals fault! Sue the owners and make them pay for their stupidity. Do whatever it takes to make the owners pay, not the animal that is doing what animals do.
Pit bulls are a good example of owners stupidity. It's not the animal, it's the idiot owners. But everyone makes the dog pay for the owners stupidity. Start making owners pay, not the animals!

This "dangerous" tortoise should get justice for losing its life over human stupidity!

I'm not even sure it's about "fault". It's not like people shoot the animals in order to punish them.

If you see an animal on your property that you think is potentially dangerous, you're not gonna kill it because it's "its fault" if it bites or stings or mauls someone/something. The fact that it's not the animal's fault doesn't mean that someone/something isn't going to get bitten/stung/mauled.

I just removed a wasp nest from my backyard last week. Killed all of them. Normally I leave wasp nests alone because if I don't bother them then they won't bother me. But this nest happened to be in a spot where it was likely to be disturbed, which meant that being stung was a lot more likely. So it had to go. It wasn't punishment for the crime of stinging people. Heck, the wasps weren't even guilty of stinging anyone yet, they were removed preemptively. But I still perceived that particular nest to be dangerous, so I got rid of it. "Fault" had nothing to do with it, it's not as if it was punishment for some kind of perceived crime. I was just trying to protect myself and others from getting stung.
 

theguy67

Well-Known Member
10 Year Member!
Joined
Sep 13, 2009
Messages
583
This situation is just a mess....I guess to us it's common sense that tortoises are not a "threat to livestock". Perhaps the neighbor has had bad experiences with mysterious animals showing up? Either way, I don't really know if ignorance is an excuse. Also, it seems like the man who shot the tortoise has fully realized what he has done, based on the statement he released Wednesday. The video said he never gave the owner a reason for shooting the tortoise, which to me is kinda odd. I'd think that would be the first think I would tell someone if I shot someone's pet. BUT, we can't really speculate further, about the man, without knowing why he did it.

With all of that said, as previously stated, there's ignorance on both sides. The tortoise should have never been able to escape, although mistakes do happen. If something doesn't happen for several years, you may not even think it's possible. Respected members on here have had escapes, should they fall in to the same category as this woman?
 

New Posts

Top