After a brief taste of freedom, two tortoises are back home with their owners after both escaped in different parts of the Valley this week.
In Gilbert, police said a runaway tortoise was back home with its owner on Friday after officers rescued the tortoise on Thursday. Police said officers were called to the intersection of Velero St. and Cayman Dr. by a utility worker who spotted the tortoise.
Around the same time -- but on the other side of the Valley -- Drew O'Neill was looking for her pet sulcata tortoise.
O'Neill said her six-year-old tortoise strolled away when a contractor left the side gate open at her Paradise Valley home earlier in the week.
"He is my family and it's just like a dog but just different, and people don't understand that," she said.
O'Neill told ABC15 after 48 hours on the loose, her pet tortoise surprisingly returned home on its own Thursday night.
As for the Gilbert runaway, police credited social media for helping spread the word in an effort to find the owner. During that process, police said they received numerous phone calls from people who were looking for their own missing tortoise. Police also said as many as five people showed up in-person hoping it was theirs. A police spokesperson told ABC15 one person who inquired about the tortoise has been looking for theirs since 2010.
