In times of reptile peril, one turns to Moris Tepper, known widely for his guitar work with Captain Beefheart and known more narrowly for his pre-vet background and abiding love for the wild natural world. He is advised of the Thinis II situation just hours after his return from a “termite vacation” at a five-star hotel, where (he reports) his own two pet tortoises deeply enjoyed the room service and cable.

How far away could this tortoise be by now?
Tortoises in nature walk two to five miles per day. My tortoises do laps around the yard. They’re gatherers, grazers. So they have to move to find food. They nibble and keep moving, nibble and keep moving.
So this tortoise could be miles and miles away?
Maybe just south of Brooklyn. Could be anywhere. Where would you look? Mine were stolen three times, and the only way I got them back was put PERDIDA TORTUGA RECOMPENSA $100. I got them back in five minutes after three weeks looking. Make 20-foot signs that are bright red and orange with a picture of the tortoise and put them in Spanish, and they’ll probably get it back, or a number of other tortoises. Knocking on doors doesn’t work. You gotta put up a sign.
Can tortoises survive out in the world?
Put it this way: I heard many stories of people losing them for months and getting them back. My neighbors have a desert tortoise that some guy found under a house that had been demolished four years earlier. It was really sickly, but she saved it. They’re a very, very enduring creature.
Should Morningland remain optimistic or move on?
They should be optimistic, but they should move on. Maybe look at the next animal that comes into the compound that shows itself to be their leader.
What is the most important thing searchers should know about the Russian tortoise?
They love caviar. // CHRIS ZIEGLER

VISIT MORIS TEPPER AT CANDLEBONE.COM | TEPPER’S STINGRAY IN THE HEART IS AVAILABLE NOW

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Turtle Power
What it’s like to find a turtle

Thinking back on that day, probably 20 years now, I can definitely say that my brother Paul and I were looking for something to fill a void in our lives as we ran along the hard-packed sand of the Long Beach waterfront at low tide. We were of that age, that time, of looking for things—of sometimes finding things. We didn’t know what we needed, what we sought. But that didn’t lessen the intensity of our quest. See, it gets boring when you run as much as we ran then—like, 10 miles a day—and that’s how we distracted ourselves: by looking for cool stuff.

So it was that a liquid movement in the sand far ahead of us steadily coagulated as we approached, until we saw that it was a turtle—a small, green turtle with little spots of red behind its eyes. We recognized it as the kind of turtle our mother once brought home to us from the county fair. We remembered naming that one Toby. We realized that little green turtles—red-eared slider turtles, we later found out it was—like this weren’t any more indigenous to a salty shoreline than they were to country fairs. We rationalized that it would be fine to pick up this turtle and take it home. We rejoiced as we repeated together: Cool stuff!

Of course, the workout wasn’t over, so we took turns carrying that little turtle for six or seven miles. But if it was scared, it didn’t act that way. Rather than retreating into its shell, it kicked at our fingers and tried to bite us. We named it Rowdy.

At home, we put it in a big long bowl, added water and a rock, bought turtle food from a pet store and sprinkled it in every day. Seems like the thing lived a pretty long time, but neither of us can remember how long or how it died. But all these years later, now that we don’t run as much and can’t run as fast or far, we still hold dear the memory of that special day we found the little green turtle on the beach. It ranks right up there with the time we were running at Heartwell Park and found that plastic statue of Tchaikovsky. Cool stuff. // DAVE WIELENGA

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Have You Seen This Tortoise?
Talking tortoise to a turtle

When a male Russian tortoise named Thinis II goes missing from the Morningland Urban Monastery, you’d think a man named Turtle (well, okay, nicknamed Turtle) would know something about it.

But you’d be wrong.

“No,” says Diamond Construction’s Robert Rivera, AKA Turtle, whom I know through mutual friends. (He plays a wicked game of dominoes.)

“And I didn’t steal him either,” he adds with a wide smile.

Duly noted.

Turtle, who got his nickname growing up on un-bucolic 14th Street, now lives in the Rose Park Historic District near the monastery—so he’s about as familiar with Thinis II’s disappearance as the average neighbor. The folks at Morningland have been pretty good about getting the word out—so they’ve talked to Rivera.

“They hit me up a couple times when I was going out to my truck,” he says, “and they were like ‘Have you seen our tortoise?’”

He hadn’t.

Turtles aren’t usually high-profile pets, and so those were the first and second times Turtle was ever asked about Morningland’s second missing tortoise.

“I saw their fliers,” Turtle says. “I know last weekend they had a big barbecue to thank everyone who helped look for him.” And that’s about it.

As far as Turtle knows, Thinis II is still just as missing as his predecessor, Thinis I. // THEO DOUGLAS

Tags: captain beefheart, Long Beach, moris tepper, morningland, tortoise