If you take a walk through Heron's Nest Park in Manatee County's Lakewood Ranch community, you'll be sure to spot one of the dozens of gopher tortoises who call the park home. 

  • 2 gopher tortoises killed, neighborhood searches for culprit
  • Tortoises were found at Heron's Nest Park in Lakewood Ranch
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Walker Spier, 11, rides through the park daily on his bicycle to get to a nearby playground. But on June 8, he spotted something down the pathway. 

"I saw two turtles... I was just saying hi to them... then I passed him and I saw one with its organs out," he explained. 

He texted his friend Marina, who came running over with her dad, Ray. The three discovered that one tortoise had its shell cracked in dozens of places, already dead. The second, was still breathing but clearly injured and laying next to a pool of blood in the pathway. 

"When I saw the first one I thought maybe it was an accident and something happened to the turtle, but when I went over to Walker and saw the second turtle where the whole top of it's shell had been caved in, at that point we realized it was probably not an accident," Ray Redden explained. 

"I was disgusted that someone would do that... and I was really mad," Marina added. 

Ray grabbed his car and rushed the living tortoise to Bayshore Animal Hospital hoping for the best. A preliminary report shows its possible the tortoise was struck by some type of vehicle or was hit with a blunt object. 

The ride to the animal hospital, a tough experience for Marina. 

"It started making noises in the back, it was really weird because it started like whining, and like gurgling, and I thought it was dying." 

A few days after they were discovered, the photos of the tortoises were posed to social media. The response from the Lakewood Ranch community was overwhelming. Numerous neighbors offered some of their own cash as a reward to whoever it is that locates the culprit. 

"Once those photos were posted to social media the news spread quickly in the Lakewood Ranch area, some neighbors so upset they even offered cash rewards for information that leads to an arrest." 

"It's awesome that the community has come together to try to fix this and to tell people it's wrong and they shouldn't do it," said Lakewood Ranch resident Mikayla Jodoin. 

Gopher tortoises are a threatened species and intentionally wounding one is a felony. 

If anyone has any information about this case, they are asked to contact FWC at tips@myfwc.com.