A 150-pound tortoise was reunited with its human family on Sunday, less than 24 hours after Alhambra police issued a plea asking for the public’s help in locating the reptile’s owners.
On Saturday, a post on the Alhambra Police Department’s Facebook page stated that officers had taken the tortoise “into custody” after it had tried “to make a run for it.”
The post did not detail when and where they found the pet.
After a commenter responded that the turtle must have “took off his ninja mask and threw away his weapons,” Alhambra police joked that the tortoise was possibly female because “it did not respond to ‘Michelangelo,’ ‘Leonardo,’ ‘Raphael’ or ‘Donatello,'” which are the names, of course, of the fictional Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
The turtle might not be a ninja, but as it turns out, it is actually male and his name is “Clark.” Police initially said his name was “Dirk,” but issued a correction later on.
Clark was reunited with his owners, who live in Alhambra, according to the updated Facebook post.
“According to 21310 of the Penal Code, it is illegal to possess a ‘dirk,'” police said in the original post.
However, noting that they enjoyed keeping families together, officers said they would make an exception for this particular case.
No further information about the reunion between tortoise and family was provided.
