Dec. 22—LAKE PARK — It may be a tough Christmas for Diego the tortoise.
“Tortoises are cold-blooded,” said his friend Kristen Jenkins. “They don’t do well in cold but do have certain instincts that can help them make it.”
Diego is a Sulcata tortoise, also known as an African spurred tortoise. The 200-pound Diego vanished from the home of Kristen and Damond Jenkins in Lake Park in October.
“I came home and he had broken the fence to his pen,” she said.
Now he faces the hardest winter weather in South Georgia in years, with overnight lows over the Christmas weekend expected to be around 20.
“Cold-blooded animals need help keeping their body temperatures normal” when cold weather arrives, she said.
Jenkins was hired by Wild Adventures Theme Park in 2016, working with park animals.
When the park decided to downsize its tortoise collection some years back, Jenkins asked if she could take Diego home, and the park agreed, she said. Diego had been at the park for more than 13 years, Adam Floyd, director of sales and marketing for Wild Adventures, said earlier this year. The tortoises were relocated in 2020 when the park was closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and a multi-year construction project began nearby, he said.
Diego was given to Jenkins to care for on her farm while the other tortoises were sent to other zoological facilities, Floyd said. Since his big breakout, there has been no news of Diego’s whereabouts, Jenkins said. Diego’s plight was highlighted in news media and on billboards around Lake Park.
Tortoises can deal with cold by digging burrows and hibernating, Jenkins said.
“My husband and I are very sad,” she said. “Diego was meant to be a lifetime pet. It’s devastating.”
Anyone with information about Diego can call Jenkins at (229) 548-0291.
Terry Richards is the senior reporter for The Valdosta Daily Times.
