Tortoise who escaped to find a mate nearly a year ago at a speed of 0.13mph is found... just ONE mile away
A tortoise who escaped 11 months ago to find a mate at a speed of 0.13mph has been found just one mile away from home.
Ginger dug under a garden fence before making a slow getaway across countryside fields in the quest for love, following the death of her longtime companion Fred.
She was eventually found behind a pub by a horse rider last week in Stanton, Gloucestershire.
Sarah-Jane Muirie, 51, is now celebrating the unexpected return of her beloved pet who she has owned since she was a 10-year-old girl.
Devastated by Ginger's disappearance last June, the mother-of-one had initially put up signs around the area but said that she had given up hope after nearly a year without a single sighting.
Fearing that she would 'never see' the reptile again after she vanished, Ms Muirie, of Bredon, Worcestershire, said: 'We had another tortoise called Fred who we lost a couple of years ago and a vet friend of mine believes she went looking for a mate.
'It's that time of the year and she's always had Fred so she's dug herself out under the garden fence and through next doors before getting into some fields.
'She is that well camouflaged we thought there's no chance we would ever find her but we put up missing posters anyway.'
Almost 11 months after Ginger disappeared, Ms Muirie got the call she was never expecting - a horse rider had discovered the small tortoise behind the Mount Inn pub, just a mile away from home.
Initially, given her natural camoflauge, Ginger had been mistaken for a rock. However, after returning to the scene, the horse rider then noticed both a head and legs.
Ms Muirie, who believes that her beloved pet was likely in hibernation for at least part of her disappearance, said: 'Amazingly, somebody remembered the posters we put up nearly a year ago and we then got the call.
'At first I thought it couldn't be Ginger but then realised there's probably not too many people around here with tortoises.
'It was amazing to get her back because we thought there was no chance she would survive the winter out there alone.' I genuinely couldn't believe that she survived a year of the wild.'
Since being reunited with her family, Ginger has been enjoying the warm weather, finding herself a secluded area where she can sunbathe and eat food.
Describing her tortoise's return as 'like a childhood dream come true', Ms Muirie added: 'To have a pet for 40 years, she could outlive me so it means a lot. We're very happy to have her back.'
At the end of April, a family in Ulverston, Cumbria, were overjoyed when their tortoise Leonardo, who had been missing for nine months, was discovered a mile away from home.
The reptile was found shuffling down a street and was taken to a pet shop, Little Beasties, where staff helped to find its owner, Rachel Etches.
Speaking to the BBC, Ms Etches said: 'It was totally my fault; we were out in the garden, we'd just had our second child, I got a bit distracted and he just wandered off out of our sight.
'He's led a very comfortable life for 13 years under a heat lamp in my house, so we didn't think he was going to survive the winter being out for the first time.'
She believed that Leonardo may have hibernated for winter and woke up when the weather started to improve.
There are an estimated 700,000 tortoises and turtles currently being kept as pets across the UK, with an average of 1.6 per cent of households owning one.
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