Wild caught tortoises

[tinkerbell1189]

On few threads I've seen people post things such as 'That looks like a wild caught tort between 6-10years' (this is not a direct quote, just an example).

Well I was wondering how you could tell if they were wild caught or not? I'm just curious now as to whether mine is wild caught or not, and his estimated age (pet shop told me 2years when i got him, 6month ago. But obviously this is not a certainty).

 

[JoesMum]

In the UK, the big give away is age. There are a number of us with Testudo tortoises of 40 years or more in age that were wild caught. They simply weren't bred in the UK before the 1980s

Wild caught tortoises generally grew less quickly in their younger years due to diet (no Mazuri!) and have smoother shells

 

[dmmj]

It depends on the tortoise, russians are usually easy to tell if they are WC or not, as for age, they are just guesses.

 

[jeffbens0n]

Coloration can be another indicator of a tortoises origin. WC tortoises generally have more faded colors, while CB ones will look more colorful and less worn.

 

[GBtortoises]

It is usually very easy to tell between wild caught tortoises and tortoises that have been raised primarily indoors. But not so much between wild caught and captive borns that have been raised outdoors.

Compared to wild caught and some outdoor raised captive born tortoises indoor captive borns have pronounced ridges on their carapace due to no natural erosion or abrasions, they are typically very uncharacteristically brightly colored with very definite contrast between different colors. Their carapaces are often not shaped the same as wild caughts. More often than not the captive borns show various obvious signs of accelerated growth in their beak, nail and shell formations.

Some species are no longer imported into the U.S. so in those cases examples of wild caught animals are very obvious by comparison due to their advanced age.