Fast-Running Quarterback Has a Slow Sidekick

Tortoises, Which Can Live 150 Years, Are a Lot to Tackle; 'Eat, Walk Around, Eat'

Rick and Teresa Kaepernick will be in New Orleans for the Super Bowl on Sunday, cheering for their son, Colin, to sprint away from Baltimore Ravens trying to crush the San Francisco 49ers' lightning-quick quarterback.

Mr. Kaepernick, as an adult with the pet, who now weighs 115 pounds

But once they're back home in California, there's a slower-moving behemoth that his parents will be keeping a wary eye on: Their son's 115-pound African spurred tortoise, Sammy. The beast, still not full-grown, has a propensity to devour the family's shrubbery, crash through fences and bump into people.

He could also live another 135 years.

So while the Kaepernicks are delighted that fans have fallen in love with their son—jerseys with his name on them are hot sellers—they advise families not to become instantly infatuated with the likes of his tortoise. "All they do is eat, walk around, eat, walk around" says Rick Kaepernick.

Experts on the African spurred tortoise tend to agree. Tortoise-rescue workers say there is a proliferation of the Geochelone sulcata—or simply "sulcata" among aficionados—needing adoption, following a craze that they say began about 10 years ago as dealers began breeding them more.

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, as a boy, with his African spurred tortoise, Sammy.

In California, rescue shelters are getting hundreds a year compared with maybe 20 five years ago, says Ginny Stigen, president of the San Diego Turtle and Tortoise Society. "We've had people literally stop on the side of a freeway and let them out," says Ms. Stigen, who worries that Mr. Kaepernick's pet might inspire fans to bring baby tortoises into their families.

The trouble: Those babies are cute, but then they get big. Up to 200 pounds.

Kristin Roman of Staten Island, N.Y., says she fell for her sulcata, Big, when he was a palm-size hatchling in 2002. "He was lovely," says the 47-year-old medical examiner. Five years later, Big had grown to 70 pounds and was tearing down her home's walls and burrowing under the fence with its sharp claws.

"He was not happy at all," says Ms. Roman, whose husband convinced her to turn the animal over for adoption in 2007.

Waiting for these pets to pass away often isn't an option: Some live 150 years. "We often have tortoises that were left in someone's will, but the heirs don't want them," says Julie Maguire, president and director of Turtle Rescue of Long Island, which has found new homes for 300 African tortoises over the past 13 years.

Ms. Maguire says she fears Mr. Kaepernick's Sammy will become "like a ninja turtle: Everyone went out and got turtles" when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV show was popular.

One reason to worry is that Sammy has his own Twitter feed (@SammyKaep7). To keep Mr. Kaepernick in touch with his tortoise, tweets are posted on the critter's behalf. "Humans keep asking me if I'm going to SB," Sammy's account recently tweeted, regarding the Super Bowl. "I'm a desert tortoise. Bayou isn't my thing."

Mr. Kaepernick's father declines to confirm or deny that he is the one ghostwriting Sammy's tweets. He will say this: "I'm just waiting for Colin to get his own pad so he can take him."

He recalls how happy his son was when, at age 10, he fit Sammy in the palm of his hand. Mr. Kaepernick had asked for an African tortoise so he could have a pet of his own, in addition to the family dog and a sister's cat.

"I saw someone on the news who had one and I wanted it. It was different—that's why," the quarterback, now 25, says.

His father says the family had little idea what raising a sulcata entailed. "We thought, wow, what are the chances of him living a long time?," he says. When Sammy was still small, the Kaepernicks kept him in a box in their four-bedroom home.

But as the young Mr. Kaepernick went on to excel at football and other sports, Sammy grew—and didn't stop. Sammy devoured so much grass and shrubbery at the family's home in Turlock, Calif., that the family cemented over much of the backyard.

Sammy has crashed through a gate, knocked over a fence and ripped stucco off the home. On three occasions, he fell into the swimming pool and had to be rescued because sulcatas can't swim. He once swallowed a bikini bottom left to dry by Mr. Kaepernick's sister-in-law, the elder Mr. Kaepernick says.

Kyle Kaepernick, the quarterback's older brother, says Sammy once broke through an iron gate and vanished. "Believe it or not, they're pretty fast," he says. "The only reason we found him was I saw these three kids racing by on bikes, yelling and waving 'C'mon' and I thought it had to be Sammy," he says, adding that Sammy is a beloved member of the family.

Some breeders say the concerns over sulcatas are overblown. "For every one in a shelter, there are countless sulcata tortoises living happily in the backyards of America causing no problems, making a lot of people happy," says Tyler Stewart, owner of TortoiseSupply.com, a breeder in Las Vegas.

And they have redeeming qualities, says Disela Zanelli, 76, a retired secretary in East Northport, N.Y., who has had two 100-pounders. "They mowed my lawn," she says. "I never had to mow my lawn."

They're also known for a pleasant disposition. "He'd literally walk up to people like, 'I'm Al,' " says Tasha Behnke, 41, of Danielsville, Pa., of her 20-pounder named Al.

Yet both Ms. Zanelli and Ms. Behnke say they reluctantly gave up their tortoises for adoption last year. For Ms. Behnke, a social worker, it was in part because Al kept trying to bust out of an indoor wire enclosure he was forced to stay in during the winter months when coldblooded sulcatas—adapted for a sunny, warm climate—can't be left outdoors.

"He'd try to get out, flail and be on his back," says Ms. Behnke, who had to upright him because sulcatas often can't do so themselves.

Ms. Zanelli threw in the towel after a dozen or so escapes, from which her sulcatas eventually grew too heavy for her to lug back home. "I hope they're happy, wherever they are," she says.

Since Mr. Kaepernick's parents moved last year, Sammy has gotten a larger yard to roam in—although the family did write their telephone number on his shell in case he got out again.

When he slows down from football enough to get a house, Mr. Kaepernick, who affectionately calls Sammy "a beast," says he "definitely" plans to take the tortoise with him. He added that he will build the tortoise "a beast house" of his own.