THE SCOOP ON SNORKEL

You knock on the doors of the campus greenhouse behind Dean Hall, anticipation swirling in your stomach. Someone inside opens the door and you are met with a wave of heat washing over you.

As you shrug off your jacket, you catch a glimpse of vibrant greenery you’ve never seen before through the clouded windows of the rooms down the hallway. The plants are intriguing, but they’re not why you’re here.

You step inside a room and find yourself somewhere brighter and hotter than where you were before, surrounded by cacti of all different shapes and sizes. It is in this room that you see him, the one you were looking for, your reason for being here. Standing before you in all his glory, you see a large tortoise- munching away at some grass and completely ignoring your presence.

CWU’S RESIDENTIAL SHELL-EBRITY

Meet Snorkel, a 16-year-old Sulcata tortoise who is the one and only resident of CWU’s greenhouse. While Snorkel isn’t the only animal that lives on campus, he is definitely the most popular and well-known.

“He’s like the mascot of the greenhouse, lots of people like to come in to pet him and take pictures,” says Linnea Stavney, Snorkel’s primary caretaker and manager of the greenhouse and vivarium.

Snorkel first came to Central Washington when he was two years old in 2008, donated to the greenhouse by his original owners.

“Sulcata tortoises are somewhat common in the pet trade,” says Stavney, “but a lot of people don’t realize just how big they get. A lot of people get them as hatchlings when they’re the size of an orange, but they don’t realize that they can grow up to 100 to 200 pounds.