Family stunned after its missing pet tortoise turns up 2 years after disappearance — a few miles from home

A tortoise has turned up two years after it went missing from its home — and the pet’s family is glad and relieved to have her back.

Jemima the tortoise, age 50, managed to make a “slow getaway” from the home of Charles Waddell in May 2021, leaving the man’s eight-year-old daughter, Beatrice, devastated, the British news agency SWNS reported. 

The family, of Haydon Bridge, Northumberland, England, spent months looking for Jemima every day, as well as posting about her on social media.

Eventually, the family gave up hope of seeing their beloved pet ever again, until a Facebook post surfaced last week about the discovery of a tortoise and its transport to a veterinarian.

“We couldn’t believe it when somebody alerted us to the fact she had been found. We recognized her straight away on Facebook,” owner Waddell — who lives with wife Belinda, daughter Beatrice and two other children, Alice, 16, and Charles, 11 — told SWNS.

“Somebody remembered our appeals and posted asking whether this could be the missing tortoise,” said Waddell, a lawyer and university lecturer.

After phoning the veterinarian’s office and sending over a picture of Jemima, the family was “stunned” when Jemima’s identity was confirmed, SWNS reported.

Daughter Beatrice, who is now 10 years old, has been happily reunited with Jemima. 

Dad Charles Waddell said the entire family was “devastated” when Jemima went missing.

“We inherited Jemima from my father when he passed away in 2016,” he told SWNS. “He was known for keeping tortoises, and she was found wandering, lost, 25 years ago.”

Jemima, he added, “must be around 50 and possibly even older now, and she’s been part of the family for many years.”

So how did the hard-shelled escape artist make a getaway?

One day in May 2021, Jemima “just managed to get out,”said Waddell, who added that tortoises “move a lot quicker than you think — she definitely outfoxed us.”

He continued, “I don’t know how she’s managed to survive the winters, but she does hibernate, so I think she must have managed to settle down somewhere and just shut down.”

He also said, “She obviously managed to keep herself well-fed.”

Jemima wasn’t found far from her home, as things happened.

“She had been found at an equestrian center around five miles away,” said Waddell.

“It turns out a farmer had found her in a field and thought she was a rock,” he explained, noting that the farmer’s kids wanted to keep Jemima.

Instead, the family “handed her over to the vets.”

He also said, “We called the vets in Morpeth and proved it was our pet by sending them photos, and we were able to collect her — much to the delight of Beatrice.”

Jemima has lived “nine lives,” said Waddell, “and we are very lucky to have her back. We never gave up, but after not seeing her for so long, we didn’t think we would see her again.”

Young Beatrice was “thrilled to have Jemima back,” the dad added, saying that the tortoise will now be housed in the family’s back garden with her tortoise friend Georgina “in a secure and upgraded pen.”

In an interesting twist, the family had been close to finding Jemima just six weeks after she originally went missing.

Four to six weeks after Jemima disappeared, “an online post said a tortoise had been found on the road about half a mile from our house,” Waddell said.

“We tracked down the person who had found her, only to be told that she had been taken to the nearest house — but as nobody was in, they had left her in the garden.”

He continued, “So, she had wandered off again. Every day we looked for her, but she was not in the property and likely moved on.”

He also said, “We would go out after school each day and check fields and by the roadside, but we knew we’d have to get very lucky to ever see her again.”

The family is ecstatic to have their pet back. 

“We can’t believe it,” Waddell said. “It was wonderful to be able to see Beatrice so happy again, as she was really distraught when she went missing.”

Jemima has “certainly been on a real adventure for the last couple of years,” Waddell noted.

He added that the family will be “keeping a closer eye on her from now on.”