Smuggled tortoise found its “forever home” at Dehiwala Zoo

A smuggled Aldabra tortoise found its forever home at the Dehiwala Zoo three months after a harrowing experience at sea.

The Director General of the National Zoological Gardens, Dr Chandana Rajapaksa told Timesonline  that the Department of Wildlife Conservation handed over the large Aldabra tortoise to the Dehiwala Zoo yesterday.

Dr Rajapaksa said that the reptile was in good health, yet they have not yet decided to include it into the exhibit with other tortoises.

“Currently we have decided to observe the condition of the tortoise, we will carry out observation for a couple of days by keeping it in the Reptilium even though it was quarantined for nearly three months at Aththidiya Aththidiya Wildlife rehabilitation center” he added.

The Veterinary Surgeon in Charge of Reptilium at the Dehiwala zoo, Dr Dinuka Sonnadara said that they had estimated the age of the tortoise to be around 50 to 60 years.

 The Times online learned that the tortoise given to the zoo was one of three large tortoises found stranded in the sea 15 kilometers westwards off the Pitipana Negombo April 29.

According information received two tortoises were initially brought to the land by fishermen, and the third tortoise was left stranded in a reef area as it was too big to be boarded into a fishing vessel.

Afterwards the nay was informed to rescue the third tortoise, however when they reached the area the tortoise was not to be seen.  

Founder of the Customs Biodiversity unit as well as its former Director Samantha Gunasekara told the Times online that he suspects that there is more to the incident than abandoning of three tortoises, near a reef area in Pitipana Negombo

He elaborated that the tortoises might have been attempted to be smuggled into another country via sea route and abandoned on a reef so another party would collect it.

According to him there are networks of exotic animal smuggling networks set up between India, Bangladesh and other countries and in many of them Sri Lanka has been used as a transit.

See related story : https://sundaytimes.lk/online/news-online/Large-tortoise-find-at-sea-could-be-linked-to-exotic-animal-smuggling-attempt/2-1149048