(Daily Bulletin) – Rancho Cucamonga firefighters and animal control officers on Thursday took part in an unusual heavy rescue.
Shortly before 1 p.m., the officers requested a three-person engine crew to come to a culvert near Hillside Road and Topaz Street.
At the bottom was a 100-pound sulcata tortoise, an African species and popular pet.
“Animal control called us because of the difficulty getting the tortoise out of the drainage culvert,” Rancho Cucamonga Fire Protection District spokesperson Kelley Donaldson said via text message.
The firefighters lifted it out using “a device that can only be described as a heavy duty tarp with carrying handles,” she wrote.
“We’ve had other animal rescues, but never one of such a large tortoise,” she wrote.
Donaldson said the tortoise’s owners were found after the city’s animal services director announced the discovery on Nextdoor.
“His name is a Rocky and he is 18-years old,” wrote city spokesperson Francie Palmer in an email. “He got out and walked a block or so from his house before he fell into the culvert and was discovered by a passing bicyclist.”
