His name was Rex because, to his owners, he looked like a dinosaur. One spring evening the giant sulcata tortoise ambled down a suburban Phoenix sidewalk, stopping neighbors in their tracks and setting off a small neighborhood campaign to keep him safe.
People gathered and wondered where he had come from, whether he was hungry or thirsty, and how to catch a creature built like a living boulder. A few neighbors nudged him along with lettuce, others posted “Large Tortoise Found” signs on Facebook and Nextdoor. Eventually Rex was lifted into a wheelbarrow and ferried into the backyard of Brian and Sara Westfall, whose five-year-old daughter promptly nicknamed him Chicken Nugget.
The Westfalls turned into attentive — if temporary — hosts. They ordered hay, dug a shallow pool so he could soak, let the grass grow for him to graze and fed him carrots. They answered neighbors’ calls for days while they waited for an owner to come forward.
Sulcata tortoises start out tiny — about the size of a golf ball — which helps explain why they’re sold cheaply and impulsively at pet shows and some stores. But African spurred tortoises grow quickly into massive animals: they can weigh well over 100 pounds, reach up to 200 pounds, and live many decades — sometimes more than a century. They dig, they require large grassy enclosures, clean water, and winter shelter. The U.S. banned their import in the early 2000s, though captive breeding continues.
“That ‘so cute’ impulse gets a lot of people into trouble,” said Dan Marchand, founder of the Phoenix Herpetological Sanctuary, which cares for hundreds of sulcatas. “If you do your homework and are prepared for their size and needs, they can be fantastic pets. But many people don’t realize what they grow into.” Marchand’s sanctuary houses roughly 700 of these tortoises, many surrendered or turned in after owners discovered the reality of sulcata care.
Rescue groups in Arizona are strained. Teri Boyungs of Eclecteri Tortoise & Reptile Rescue/Sanctuary in Casa Grande says they take in about 1,250 sulcatas a year and refer another thousand to other organizations. Arizona’s climate makes breeding and egg incubation easy, and a single female can produce dozens of hatchlings annually — another reason rescues are overwhelmed.
Rex could easily have ended up at one of those rescues. Instead, about five days after his sidewalk stroll, his owner called. Frank Boxberger had bought Rex at a San Diego pet store about 15 years earlier, enchanted by the dinosaur look. Over the years Rex became part of family life — greeting Boxberger in the backyard, making appearances at events — but his digging and damage to landscaping had become a problem.
Boxberger said Rex had been staying temporarily at his mother’s house while the family planned a landscaping redo. He suspects someone touring the house left a gate open. When Boxberger’s daughter saw the Westfalls’ flyer, she called and learned Rex was safe.
Boxberger was already planning to rehome the tortoise. He offered Rex to the Westfalls, but though they loved hosting him, their yard wasn’t a long-term option. Enter Garret Beshey, a plumber who had been working with the woman buying the home where Rex had been staying. Beshey had wanted a sulcata for some time but didn’t feel right buying one amid what he described as excessive breeding in the trade.
Beshey planned to give Rex a roomy new backyard, took the hay and pool the Westfalls had bought, and joked about renaming him Bowser, after the video-game turtle boss. But first he had to extract the more-than-100-pound tortoise from a patch of oleander where Rex was firmly settled. Carrots, flowers and gentle prodding didn’t budge him, so Beshey resorted to pulling until the tortoise was free. Rex rode home in the back of his truck, apparently unconcerned.
The episode in Scottsdale was more than a quirky neighborhood story. It highlighted how often sulcatas are acquired without a full understanding of their long-term needs, and how private rescues and individual neighbors become the safety net when owners can’t — or don’t — keep up. For Rex, luck and a lot of community effort led not to shelter intake but to a new adopter prepared to care for a very large, very long-lived pet.