West Hills : Long-Lost Pet Plods Back Into Owner’s Life

All David Stewart wanted to do was clean out some brush to make a dog-run. But he ended up uncovering a piece of Karen Sutton’s childhood: a pet turtle missing since 1979.

“It was funny to see something from your past like that,” said Sutton, who lives in West Hills and was 16 when she last saw the turtle at her former home in West Los Angeles. “You’ve got to admit it’s pretty weird.”

Sutton’s family long assumed that the turtle was trapped and died when an addition was built onto their house.

Instead, the turtle survived in the brush and bushes along the side of the house for the past 16 years, Stewart said. Two weeks ago, Stewart cut down a berry-laden bush that he suspects was the turtle’s main source of food. A week later, he caught the turtle coming out of its hiding place and heading for a neighbor’s yard. He later found the turtle’s nest.

“I don’t want him,” Stewart said to his neighbor, Norma Fuhrman. “But who owns him?”

“I’ll bet it’s Margie Walker’s,” Fuhrman said. Stewart bought the house from Walker--Sutton’s mother--two years ago.

“Obviously, we are all happy he did not get stuck under the house and die under there,” Fuhrman said.

The turtle, which Sutton originally found on the street when she was 8, was returned to her last week. She said she believes it is the same turtle because of a small hole in the shell.

Her 8-year-old son, Sean, and his friends have named the turtle Pepper, because it likes to eat green peppers. Sutton said she had never named the pet.

“The kids all love him because most of them had never seen one before,” Sutton said.

Pepper, a desert tortoise with brownish colors, is about the size of a dinner plate. “He doesn’t look any bigger,” Sutton said. Most of a turtle’s growth occurs in the animal’s first five to 10 years of life. After that, it grows at a much slower rate. Some box turtles and tortoises have been known to live more than 100 years.

Pepper also likes to dig and moves pretty fast, Sutton said. Her husband, Pat, plans to build an enclosure for the turtle to make sure it doesn’t escape again.