Hong Kong’s role in the illegal wildlife trade driven by China highlighted by case of a three-legged tortoise who’s travelled half the globe
- ‘Shelley’, rescued after being smuggled from Madagascar to Hong Kong in a suitcase with 56 other tortoises, will soon begin a new life at Britain’s Chester Zoo
- At Kadoorie Farm, where she had roller wheels fitted, staff are pushing for tougher sentences for traffickers feeding insatiable demand for rare breeds in China
It’s a travel itinerary to bring tears of envy to the eyes of grounded Hongkongers: an exotic nature reserve in Madagascar followed by a boat trip across the Indian Ocean to the tropical Comoros Islands, then a journey from Addis Ababa to Hong Kong with a stopover in the Middle East, and finally a one-way flight from Hong Kong to the UK.
The lone female traveller involved has clocked up more than 20,000km (12,400 miles) over the past 30 months, qualifying for the kind of air-mile count that remains a feverish fantasy for millions perpetually confined to claustrophobic Hong Kong.
Her globetrotting is all the more impressive when you consider she is a three-legged ploughshare tortoise who – when not airborne – shuffles languidly around at 1km/h.
But for Shelley (as we’ll call her for the purposes of this article), international travel was the stuff of nightmares rather than dreams. She was snatched from her territory in a remote corner of Madagascar, smuggled by boat and plane to Ethiopia, then wrapped in plastic tape and flown to Hong Kong crammed inside a suitcase with 56 other rare tortoises.
Another ploughshare tortoise (almost certainly a near relative) that made the journey with her perished after being discovered by Hong Kong customs officers in September 2019. Shelley, meanwhile, was kept under close guard at Kadoorie Farm and Botanical Garden, and fitted with roller wheels to compensate for her missing leg before flying off to a new life at Britain’s Chester Zoo in December 2021.
