It takes a village – or a Phoenix suburb – to wrangle a wayward tortoise

Animals It takes a village – or a Phoenix suburb – to wrangle a wayward tortoise May 18, 20265:00 AM ET Alina Hartounian Rex, the tortoise, at Brian and Sara Westfall's home, who fostered him while they searched for his owner, in Scottsdale, Arizona. Adriana Zehbrauskas for NPR/57999420m hide caption toggle caption Adriana Zehbrauskas for NPR/57999420m His name was Rex because he looked like a dinosaur. The giant sulcata tortoise came lumbering down a suburban Phoenix street one recent spring evening. A gaggle of dumbfounded neighbors milled about him. I was among them. Questions swirled. Where did he come from? How far had he come? Was he hungry? Thirsty? Tired? Rex walks as a group of neighbors watches. Alina Hartounian/NPR hide caption toggle caption Alina Hartounian/NPR His unlikely stroll down a sidewalk stirred the neighborhood into a tizzy and set in motion a multi-pronged effort to find his owners. But, more than just a fun commotion on a Tuesday night, Rex's daring getaway shows just how challenging owning a sulcata tortoise can be, even though the pet trade is so widespread that sulcata ownership featured as a punchline in a Saturday Night Live sketch. Sponsor Message 'So damn cute' View of one of five newborn African spurred tortoise (Centrochelys Sulcata) at the zoo, in Guadalajara, Mexico, Jalisco state, on May 17, 2018. Ulises Ruiz/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Ulises Ruiz/AFP via Getty Images When sulcatas hatch, they're the size of golf balls. "They're so damn cute, you can't help but [say] 'Oh, I want to take one or two of these home for my kids,'" said Dan Marchand, founder of the Phoenix Herpetological Sanctuary. "But it doesn't take long before it's taken up your yard. It's tearing up your garden. It's knocking over furniture." They may start out tiny, but African sulcatas grow to be the third-largest tortoise in the world. The U.S. banned their importation in the early 2000s, but breeding remains legal. They can weigh up to 20...