Daisy the 150-pound tortoise reunites with owner after going missing twice during Hurricane Laura
LAKE CHARLES, La. – When Keith Greenlee was forced to evacuate his home Wednesday before Hurricane Laura, he packed up five of his cats and a rabbit and jammed their crates into the front of his pickup.
Headed to ride out the Category 4 storm at his friend’s one-bedroom home in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, he boarded the small critters nearby.
But he had to make the heartbreaking decision to leave Daisy behind.
There was nowhere to go and no safe way to transport the 150-pound male tortoise.
“I didn’t know what else I could do. I needed to get out,” Greenlee said, choking up. “I feel like I’m supposed to be their protector … and I’m not.”
It was a long few days until Greenlee knew Daisy was safe – thanks to the kindness of strangers.
He knew Daisy survived the storm, but the approximately 20-year-old reptile remained missing up until Saturday night.
Daisy was corralled in a yard near Greenlee’s home, he said.
Friends who recognized Daisy after the storm notified Greenlee, and he secured the address where the tortoise was held.
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Daisy, lost and found
By the time he drove from Ponchatoula back to Lake Charles, Daisy was gone.
Greenlee assumed the homeowner came back to check the property after the storm and, not knowing Daisy was penned in the backyard, left the gate open.
Late Saturday, members of a church group that was in the area found Daisy – or more precisely, Daisy found them.
The group, from Lafayette, was handing out hot meals at Hamilton Christian Academy close to Greenlee’s home when the tortoise walked up.
Greenlee contacted a representative of the group, who offered to hold onto Daisy for safekeeping until Greenlee's fence is mended.
“He was super nice,” Greenlee said. “I offered to donate to the church, and he wouldn’t have anything to do with it. He just said, ‘No no no no no. You just take care of yourself and your tortoise, and we got this.’ ”
Greenlee had been worried that storm cleanup efforts might harm Daisy.
“They use these bulldozer things to clear the streets out,” he said. “My fear is that he hides in the foliage or the branches and they just bulldoze him somewhere.”
Throughout the ordeal, Greenlee took solace in knowing that Daisy is a survivor.
He adopted the tortoise eight years ago from an owner who kept him in an apartment in the French Quarter of New Orleans – and who thought the reptile was female for 12 years.
“The poor thing never saw grass,” Greenlee said.
The owner charged tourists to take a photo with Daisy on Bourbon Street. One day when he wasn’t paying attention, Daisy walked out into the street and was hit by a car.
He had a plaster cast placed on his shell, but it didn’t heal completely. Daisy bears a distinctive scar on the right side of his shell.
After Greenlee adopted Daisy, “he’s doubled in size since he’s been able to graze like he’s supposed to on the grass and get good exercise roaming my yard.”
Losses compounded in Laura's wake
Greenlee said he didn’t imagine his brand-new fence, with a wrought iron gate, would fall as it did in the storm. Though his house was spared, the fence, his patio, greenhouse and shed are gone.
So is his garden.
Greenlee cherished his backyard oasis, posting colorful Flower Friday snapshots on Facebook each week.
“I’m also a plant guy. It was like a ‘Secret Garden’ in my backyard, and it’s no longer,” he said.
Greenlee’s partner died in April, compounding the losses he feels.
“2020 is not my favorite year so far,” he said.
Bringing Daisy home again is sure to help with that.
Follow reporter Ilana Keller on Twitter: @ilanakeller
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This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Lake Charles tortoise found after being lost in Hurricane Laura
