A nearly 100-pound tortoise named Lard made a break for freedom from his fenced yard in Littleton, and by the time animal control caught up with him, he had already made it into the middle of a street with a woman struggling to wrangle him back. After officials responded to a report of a wandering tortoise on August 31, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office later formally closed the case — with Lard listed, tongue firmly in cheek, as a “shellebrity” suspect.
According to The Denver Post, Lard is a sulcata tortoise who escaped his fenced Littleton yard and was found by a Jefferson County animal control officer in the middle of a street, where a woman was already struggling with him. Body-worn camera video shows Lard had zero interest in going home voluntarily, and negotiations for his cooperative return went nowhere, per the same report. Eventually the officer and a bystander teamed up to lift the tortoise together and carry him back to his house.
Body-cam footage captured the two men chatting about Lard's appetite as they hauled him along, with one noting that the tortoise had been steadily eating since they arrived on scene. That detail tracks with how sulcata tortoises actually live: they require a strictly herbivorous, high-fiber diet of grasses and weeds, and getting the wrong food or too much protein can cause serious health problems like metabolic bone disease, according to Reptiles Magazine.
Why a Tortoise Can Outmuscle a Backyard Fence
Lard's slow-motion jailbreak is less surprising once you consider what sulcata tortoises are built for. The African spurred tortoise is the world's third-largest tortoise species, capable of growing more than 30 inches long and weighing about 99 to 220 pounds, per the World Animal Rescue Network. In the wild, they're native to the arid Sahel region south of the Sahara, and that background helps explain their next trick: powerful digging.
Sulcata tortoises are powerful diggers that make deep or extensive burrows to escape heat. It's a mismatch between ancient desert instincts and modern backyard containment.
Colorado's climate adds another wrinkle as autumn sets in. Sulcata tortoises don't hibernate and are adapted to warm climates, so they should be kept indoors in cooler months. Their long lifespan and rapid growth can make them difficult for unprepared owners to manage, and adults may end up in rescues.
Case Closed, With a Wink
The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office wrapped up the episode with characteristic humor, officially marking the case status as closed and crediting animal control officer McMullen with responding to the report of a wandering tortoise. In its social media post, the office quipped that Lard had “big travel plans and no sense of urgency,” a fitting epitaph for a 100-pound reptile who nearly wandered off his own property before getting a lift home from an officer and a helpful neighbor.
It's not the first slow-speed tortoise saga to catch local attention — Hoodline previously reported on a mistaken turtle sighting in Old Louisville that turned out to be a large roaming tortoise. For now, Lard is back home in Littleton, presumably still grazing, with his escape immortalized in a bodycam clip and an official case file that closes on a distinctly light note.
