HIGHLAND, Ind. - A 60-pound tortoise that escaped from a family's garage last month is back home after a 2 1/2-week adventure that took him through three northwestern Indiana towns.

Tank, an 8-year-old African spur thigh tortoise, was returned Wednesday to owners Mark and Kim Hirchak after they called Munster police to report him missing.

The couple had earlier called Highland and Hammond police, but Munster officers knew all about the missing reptile, which had turned up at a gas station not long after his escape.

During his absence, Tank was shuttled between various homeowners, including a couple whose backyard strawberry patch and flowers became his dinner.

'Lost brother'
Fourteen-year-old Kylie Hirchak said Tank, who escaped when someone left open a garage door, is like a member of the family. He's one of two tortoises the family owns.

"I'm really happy. It feels like we just found our lost brother or something," she said after Highland resident Jeff Dixon brought Tank home in a van.

Her 12-year-old sister, Kelsie, had feared that Tank fell into a ditch or that someone put him in a pond and he drowned.

Tank's freedom wasn't his first. He escaped during a Fourth of July party last year and was found three days later at a post office about three miles away.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25526100/?GT1=43001

Apparently the turtle does not feel the same way about the family, as the family feels about it...

Tank apparently being an African tortoise was doing his best to get north.

Tank, who now chooses to go by the name "Cinque", realized that mailing himself north would not work... He then, on his next escape attempt, tried to make a break for the underground railroad... Again proving to be unsuccessful... When taken into custody he was quoted as saying "no justice, no peace!!!"... He also had a little Black sock on his right fore foot...

He was also heard shouting: "Give me free."

Everyone thought the children were making up stories when they recounted how the turtle gave them a piercing stare and yelled

"My name ain't Tank! My name is Kunte Kinturtle!"

Peace...



Tank's owners are frustrated by his repeated attempts at escape and decide to chop off half of his shell...Despite his disability, he makes further attempts at escape..Until he meets Tanktra, a female tortoise, and she convinces him to accept his lot in life..He lives the remainder of days in the garage...

More from the ARF... (Animal Resistance Front)

-AG

A rooster lived for 18 months after having its head chopped off?

Strange but true. A farmer from Fruita, Colo., thought he was just putting dinner on the table when he picked up an axe and beheaded one of his chickens. What happened next became the stuff of legend: The headless rooster bobbed and weaved back to the henhouse and lived for 18 more months.



The animal, later dubbed Mike and celebrated with a festival, Web sites and various magazine articles, survived because the blade missed his jugular vein and a clot prevented him from bleeding to death. The axe blow landed high enough that most of the chicken's brain stem and one ear remained intact. Mike was fed and watered by inserting an eyedropper directly into his gullet. Sadly, he later choked to death in a motel room.



Residents of Fruita remember Mike as "a big fat chicken who didn't know he didn't have a head."

My question is this... What were they doing with a chicken in a Motel room???

-AG

tell mama we're gonna need a whole lotta hot sauce!