Blake the tortoise, WWI survivor, seeks home
08/17/2012
The search is on for a home for a tortoise rescued nearly a century ago by a British solider amid the bloody Battle of Gallipoli.
Blake the tortoise is approaching his 100th birthday. He was plucked from the Turkish sands during one of World War I’s costliest battles – nearly 500,000 casualties in all – and smuggled back to Great Britain in a backpack.
Blake outlived the soldier, now only remembered by the name Mr. Marris, by some three decades, and was eventually passed on to a Norfolk, England, tortoise breeder, Marion Skinner, in the 1980s, according to The Telegraph.
Blake is Skinner’s last tortoise, and she’s put him up for adoption because she has back problems and is struggling to care for him.
Blake, 67, said she would love to see Blake returned to Turkey and the beaches where he was scooped to safety amid a rain of artillery shells 98 years ago.
“If he could go back to Turkey I am sure he would love it. If there’s anybody in Gallipoli who could take him that would be perfect,” she told The Telegraph. “He always loved the sunshine and the warmth of the green house so I am certain he would enjoy being back in his natural environment. It would be an incredible ending to his incredible story.”
Blake has lived with Skinner and her now-retired commercial refrigeration engineer husband Barrie, 67, since they adopted him from a woman called Mrs. Marris in 1983.
Her back problems have gradually forced her to give up all of her tortoises over the past few years, and now Skinner just has to find one last home for spur-thighed tortoise Blake, according to The Telegraph.
Blake has been taken in at the nearby home by Dillon Prest, where the nonagenarian reptile joins more than three dozen other tortoises.
“Blake is really quite fit and raring to go, just mooching about my garden,” Prest said. “The only problem is that he has cataracts, which has proven difficult when he meets a female tortoise he quite likes.”
And it seems that although Blake is almost a century old, he still has the sparkle in his eye, according to the Norwich Evening News.
Blake was still producing offspring as recently as a year ago, Prest said.
“According to the tortoise experts, the ideal home for Blake would offer access to a secure sunny garden, with a healthy diet of weeds and wildflowers dusted with calcium,” the publication added. “And he would need a warm dry shelter during bad weather, such as a greenhouse or utility area with a UV heat lamp.”
Skinner, who has kept and bred more than 20 tortoises, still believes returning the Gallipoli veteran to his native beaches would be the best home.
“I really want Blake to find a special home because he’s so elderly and actually very geriatric, she said. “He needs a bit of tender loving care and a quiet life now.”
(Above: Blake the Tortoise at the home of Dillon Prest, who has taken in the reptile until a permanent home can be found. Photo credit: The Telegraph.)
08/17/2012 at 10:35 am
Reminds me of Clive of India…
08/17/2012 at 12:36 pm
Your comment reminded me of the 200-plus year-old tortoise that died just a few years ago, whihc was supposedly brought back from India in the middle of the 18th century. It’s amazing how long they can live, isn’t it?
08/17/2012 at 7:35 pm
Was Clive at the London Zoo?
08/18/2012 at 10:30 am
I did some quick research and the tortoise lived in India until it died in 2006. Clive was the name of the English nobleman whose pet he was originally, but the tortoise went by the name “Adwaita,” which apparently is Sanskrit for “one and only.”
08/18/2012 at 2:43 am
He must be a tough little bugger. Can you imagine what he went through to be smuggled to Britain?
I’ve got a soft spot for turtles, he can come and live with me, it is of no matter that it is entirely inappropriate to send him that far from home
08/18/2012 at 10:34 am
I’ve got soft spot for turtles, too. I’ve often brought back turtles I’ve found in the middle of the road and kept them in my back yard, which my girls love.
That this little guy survived the shelling at Gallipoli is amazing in and of itself. It’s also touching that amid all the chaos of that battle, a British soldier plucked the reptile from the sands, almost certainly saving his life. And you’re right, getting him back to Britain can’t have been easy.
08/18/2012 at 10:02 pm
The story of the soldier saving Blake is so touching. I suppose that in the midst of all that carnage, to be able to save that little life would have been very important to the soldier, Marris.