Why Humans Think Bigger Is Better

(The Secret Life of a Foraging Tortoise)

Good evening, humans.

I’ve been watching you again.

It’s fascinating.

You spend hours researching the perfect weeds. You grow beautiful edible flowers. You lovingly arrange them into what can only be described as a five-star tortoise buffet. Then you place it all on a lovely slate, stand back, admire your work and think…

“My tortoise is going to love this.”

Well…

We do appreciate the effort.

We really do.

But I think you’ve misunderstood what makes a tortoise happy.

Humans…

You’ve been overthinking again.

You think my favourite part of the day is eating.

It isn’t.

My favourite part of the day is finding my food.

They’re two completely different things.

Out in the wild, nobody appears every morning carrying breakfast. There isn’t a waiter. There isn’t a menu. There certainly isn’t a beautifully arranged pile of weeds and flowers waiting for me on a slate.

Instead, I wake up with a purpose.

I wander through the grasses. I sniff the air. I investigate every corner. I climb over rocks to see what’s growing on the other side. I squeeze between plants. I stretch my neck to reach a flower that’s just out of reach. Sometimes I discover a tiny weed growing between two stones that nobody else had noticed.

Some days I find plenty.

Some days I don’t.

And do you know what?

That’s perfectly normal.

Because finding my food isn’t something I have to do before breakfast.

Finding my food is part of being a tortoise.

Let me explain it another way.

Imagine somebody brought you breakfast.

You ate it in five minutes.

Then they took away your television, your books, your phone, your knitting, your crossword, your garden, your hobbies… everything that makes your day enjoyable.

Now imagine all you could do was sit there waiting until tomorrow’s breakfast arrived.

Day after day.

Week after week.

Year after year.

Wouldn’t life become rather dull?

Humans need things to do. You read books. You watch television. You solve puzzles. You spend time in the garden. You walk the dog. You meet friends. Those things don’t just fill your day…

They enrich your life.

Well…

Foraging enriches mine.

Every hidden leaf is a little discovery. Every flower tucked beneath a plant is a small success. Every weed I find behind a rock gives me exactly the same little feeling you get when you’ve finished a crossword, completed a jigsaw or finally found the screwdriver you were convinced someone had borrowed.

That feeling matters.

It’s called having a purpose.

So when you place my entire day’s food into one neat pile…

Breakfast lasts five minutes.

You’ve accidentally taken away the next few hours of my day.

Humans often ask,

“How can I make my tortoise happier?”

Then they buy a prettier food bowl. Or a larger slate. Or arrange my flowers into something worthy of the Chelsea Flower Show.

Human…

Forget the slate. Hide the food instead.

Scatter it around my enclosure. Tuck a dandelion behind a rock. Hide a plantain leaf beneath a log. Place flowers in different corners. Let me climb to find one. Let me sniff out another. Let me work for the next one.

Every extra step is exercise. Every little search is enrichment. Every tiny success reminds me I’m doing exactly what tortoises have been doing for millions of years.

And while we’re chatting…

Can we have a little word about portion sizes?

Humans seem to believe that the bigger the pile, the better they’re looking after me.

That’s a wonderfully kind thought.

But it’s a very human one.

Nature doesn’t work like that.

Wild Mediterranean tortoises don’t wake up every day to an unlimited buffet. Food changes with the seasons. Some days it’s plentiful. Some days they have to search much harder. That natural variation is part of life, and spending time searching for food is just as important as eating it.

Here I am…

Living in a lovely safe enclosure. A heat lamp keeping my body active. Food arriving every single day. No searching. No uncertainty. No effort.

It’s hardly surprising that some of us become a little…

Rounder than nature intended.

Thankfully, humans haven’t invented Tortoise GLP-1 yet.

Although, judging by some of the photographs I see online…

I suspect somebody is probably working on it.

I’d much rather you hid my lunch than reached for a miracle injection.

Now before anybody panics…

I’m not suggesting you stop feeding me.

Quite the opposite.

If I live in an enclosure, I rely on you completely. I can’t wander across hillsides looking for fresh weeds. I can’t decide today’s meadow looks a little sparse and simply walk to another one. I can’t spend the afternoon exploring hedgerows or climbing through wildflowers. My world is much smaller than that.

Which means you’re my meadow, you’re my seasons, you’re my countryside.

Every weed I eat…

Every flower I discover…

Every little adventure I have…

Begins with you.

That’s why this matters so much. Because you’re not simply deciding what I eat today. You’re deciding how I spend my day. You’re deciding whether I spend five minutes eating… …or two wonderful hours searching, climbing, sniffing, exploring and discovering.

Being a tortoise.

Oh…

And please stop throwing away perfectly good flowers. I watched you deadheading your pansies yesterday. Those slightly faded violas?

Still delicious.

That petunia looking a little tired?

I’d happily eat it.

Those dried hibiscus flowers you’ve been saving?

Wonderful.

Humans seem convinced everything I eat has to look perfectly fresh.

Honestly…

When I’m foraging, I don’t search for the prettiest flower.

I search for variety.

Fresh leaves. Older leaves. Dry flowers. Fresh flowers. Seed heads. Different smells Different textures.

Nature isn’t perfectly colour-coordinated. Neither is my lunch.

So don’t spend your mornings creating the world’s prettiest tortoise salad.

Spend them creating the world’s most interesting tortoise day.

Because here’s the secret…

Humans often think love looks like a bigger pile of food.

To us…

Love looks like the chance to find it ourselves.

A tortoise that spends five minutes eating…

…has been fed.

A tortoise that spends two hours searching, climbing, sniffing, exploring and discovering……has been allowed to be a tortoise.

And that’s a far greater gift.

Now…

If you’ll excuse me…I’m fairly certain you’ve hidden a dandelion behind that rock.

Excellent effort.

You’re learning.

Please don't forget, 'You’re my meadow, you’re my seasons, you’re my countryside'  Manuel x