Tortoise in the jungle of Teluk Batik

A few months back my friend Mr. Goh told me about a tortoise he had in his brothers garden. We went there, it was a beautiful 12.5 kg animal. I told Goh this one should be brought back to the jungle despite having space in this garden. It's what we did today, July 15.

The story starts about one year ago when a local hunter catches this tortoise. The hunter is a local old man who normally catches wild boar and sells the meat. This time he had the tortoise hoping he could sell it. He kept the animals in a bucket with not space for the animal to even move!

After about 6 months Mr. Goh finally got his hands on the tortoise. He brought it to his brothers house with a huge garden. Here the tortoise could find strength and be prepared to go back in the jungle.

He weights 12.5 kg

The tortoise stayed in the garden for about 3 months until today. We brought the animal back to the Teluk Batik jungle, hiked a bit uphill and set it free.

Left: On the way into the jungle
Right: Tortoise at the creek

It was clear the tortoise was not immediately ready to move. After all, in a box in a car, and then in a sack carried in the jungle... I give it you to do... We stopped at a little creek and left the tortoise here. We set back for about 15 minutes and waited for beautiful animal slowly started moving, back into his own territory.

Within minutes it was hard to see him. I bet if someone else had been passing us on the path he would have thought we just sat there to rest. Even though the tortoise had no further away then 15 meter or so, we hardly could see it. Hopefully it won't get caught again.

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