The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

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June 19, 2007

Missing tortoise sighted at bar, may be held hostage

By Matt Snyder

HERMITAGE — So a guy and a turtle walked into a bar.

That’s not the beginning of a joke. It’s what one caller this weekend told Jacque Barborak, whose 65-pound African Sulcata turtle went missing after escaping from his Hermitage home on June 10.

According to the caller, Barborak’s turtle, whose name is Gus, was spotted Saturday in a Farrell bar.

The land tortoise is apparently alive and may be in the possession of a man who wants a reward to return the turtle, according to another phone call Barborak received.

Barborak got about 40 calls about the tortoise since a story ran in the Herald on Saturday. The calls trace the movement of Gus from in front of Barborak’s Pine Hollow Boulevard home in Hermitage, to the shore of the Shenango River Lake, to the Farrell bar, and possibly into the possession of a Sharon man’s brother.

Barborak, whose 7-year-old reptilian pet escaped, said he got a call from a woman demanding a $100 reward for the animal. When he refused to pay, she hung up.

“It’s just knowing he’s out there, and they won’t give him back,” he said. Police told him he may not get the turtle back, and his children are still upset by the disappeared pet.

Barborak has caller ID and tracked down the address of the phone number. Police went to a home on Ravine Place in Sharon, and the man there said it was his brother who had the turtle and was either him or his girlfriend who had made the call, Barborak said.

The man told police on Sunday that he would ask his brother to give the turtle back, Barborak said. He has not heard from them since.

“I’m probably going to send the cops back down there if I don’t hear anything soon. But he is alive, the brother has him,” Barborak said.

Some of the calls Barborak said he received were duds. Some people reported the turtle dead on the Shenango Valley Freeway, but after investigating Barborak found they had actually seen an overturned hubcap.

About 10 calls came from people who said they saw the turtle on Pine Hollow Boulevard in front of Barborak’s house where it apparently crossed the road.

One person called to say that after the turtle was deposited across the road in a woods, they’d picked it back up and transported it to Golden Run Wildlife Area at Shenango River Lake.

“Thank God he didn’t throw him into the water,” Barborak said. Gus is a land tortoise who is used to warm and dry weather, and cannot swim.

Another family called to tell him they saw the turtle while canoeing Golden Run, and a Clark family told him two fishermen picked the turtle up there and said they were keeping him as a pet. Barborak suspects those fishermen are the Sharon man and his brother.

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