Owners Suspect Lost Tortoises Were Stolen

For the last seven years, Elsie and Ray Cogswell have cared for their rare California desert tortoises in the backyard of their Camarillo home.

But six weeks ago, they say, three of their six tortoises disappeared while they vacationed in Las Vegas.

“I think someone came in and took them,” said Elsie Cogswell. “But I couldn’t imagine who.”

The couple found no gates left open. When they returned from Las Vegas, they found no signs the tortoises had dug their way out. It’s possible that the male and two females were taken to breed, Cogswell said.

The tortoises, included on the federal list of threatened species, cannot be bought or sold but only privately adopted with proper permits, said Jeanie Vaughan, founder of Turtle Dreams, an adoption and education agency for turtles and tortoises based in Santa Barbara.

Females are especially rare, Vaughan said. There’s a waiting list to adopt female tortoises that can be more than a year long, she said.

The two female tortoises are about the size of dinner plates, weighing 7 to 8 pounds.

The male weighs about 5 pounds and has a cracked shell. The male also has a small growth on his beak and a fiberglass patch on his belly from surgery two years ago.

The Cogswells have posted signs, notified neighbors and called animal shelters. But so far, no luck.

The couple remain optimistic that the tortoises will show up and that whoever might have taken them will bring them back.

“No questions asked,” Elsie Cogswell said. “Just bring them back.”