Later Life
Harriet was thought to be male for many years and was actually named Harry after Harry Oakman, the creator of the zoo at the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, but this was corrected in the 1960s by a visiting director of Hawaii's Honolulu Zoo. (As it happens, Tom, the specimen in the Queensland Museum, was also a female.)
On November 15, 2005, her much publicized 175th birthday was celebrated at Australia Zoo. This event was attended by Scott Thomson (the researcher on Harriet's history), three generations of the Fleay family, Robin Stewart (author of Darwin's Tortoise), and many hundreds of others who knew this tortoise during the latter part of her life.
Harriet died in her enclosure on June 23, 2006, of heart failure following a short illness.
Read more about this topic: Harriet (tortoise)
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“They think how one life hums, revolves and toils,
One cog in a golden singing hive:”
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“Silent waters rocking on the morning of our birth,
like an empty cradle waiting to be filled.
And from the heart of God the Spirit moved upon the earth,
like a mother breathing life into her child.”
—Gordon Light (20th century)