I have posted this previously but I thought I should do it in the official section!

I found a male hermanns roughly 7 years of age wandering in the road on my way from High Wycombe to Reading. I can't remember the exact date now but it was a Friday at about 5.30 in the afternoon and over a month ago, pics are in the tort I found album in the gallery.

Me and my mum are taking care of him until claimed, and if no one claims him then we are happy to keep hold of him, Im going to call the RSPCA tomorrow as they said they keep the file open for 28 days and see what they say about the situation.

I have called a few vets in the Maidenhead area and my vets in Reading where we took him after we found him to be checked out, and I attempted to call the RSPCA local to Maidenhead but they weren't very professional and asked for my number to call me back and they never did! good job it wasnt an emergency! Oh I also called Maidenhead police station and put it on file. And have informed the garden centre 2 minutes from where we found him that sells tortoises (we went there as soon as we found him and they were more helpful than the vets!). And yet no news! can someone really have got rid of him on purpose?! If that is what happened im so glad i found him before the wheels of a car did, and can't really believe what would make someone just abandon him.

The only other thing we could suggest is to contact John Hayward. He I think i'm correct in saying is a retired police man with a huge interest in tortoises and collates data on all lost and found tortoises in the UK.

01 86 93 25 699 is his telephone number and jh@ntr.supanet.com e-mail.

I think you have done a wonderful job so far.

HTH

Elaine

Hi, did the vet you took your tort to check to see if it had been micro chipped?

Vivienne

So glad that you saved this tortoise which would most likely have died without your help!

I'd imagine they checked for a micro chip we werent really told much at all we just had to leave him there for most of the day and they observed his behaviour and gave him a general check up and said he is healthy. We told them that we found him and we had to fill out forms with all the info

I was told by someone else to do this and I did email him but never got a reply, but thanks for the suggestion! I may try again

Please mail John again.  It is very unusual for John not to respond to a mail........perhaps it got overlooked or went to his spam folder for some reason.  John is really dedicated to re-uniting tortoises with their owners, so please try to contact him again.

Good Luck

Jo

ok ill do that now

This was my email response from the RSPCA:

Thank you for your email.

Unfortunately, apart from pet dogs, there is no law concerning lost pets and the period after which it legally becomes yours. It is now several months since you found the tortoise and if you have taken every reasonable step to find the owner i.e. put up posters, contacted lost/found organisations, contacted local vets etc and there has been no response; we would recommend you register the pet at your local vet and then take on responsibilty for the welfare of the tortoise.


Thank you for contacting the Society and I hope you find this information helpful.


Kind regards
RSPCA Enquiries Service

I think I'll take their advice but I wont take him to the vets I usually use as they kept calling him a she!!

I haven't put up any posters but I didn't think that was a good idea as anyone could say it was theirs and I'd have no way of knowing if they were lying or not

i emailed again and got a reply today, he said he did get my original email and has had no luck so far but is looking back further incase he was missing for a long time

We have a Hermanns that was handed in to us in August, i have called all local vets, petshops and the RSPCA and the local vets have put notices up for me. If you take photo's of the tortoise then you can keep them for future reference and if anyone tries to claim it then you need to ask for pictures which you can then compare. Most people have photos of their pets.

Ali

Ok thankyou for your advice, its looking less likely now that he will be claimed as its been such a long time! But I guess you never know! I've written in another post today about his plastron being all black which I've found out Isn't very common so thats probably a good thing to identify him by!

Just thought Id' let everyone know I still have JD, no claims as of yet! Been over a year now

Crikey does nt time go quickly?  Glad to hear he has a good home with you now, how is he doing?

Vivienne

It has gone extremely fast! He's fine thankyou he's been putting on weight which is good he's average now rather than underweight! :)