MISSOURI — A 500-pound tortoise’s skateboarding days are over at Dickerson Park Zoo in southwest Missouri’s Springfield.

Bubba, who is about 80 years old, had a wound on his belly in need of healing correctly. Joey Powell, Public Relations and Marketing Director at the zoo, says Bubba is back to walking on his own. She tells Missourinet the wound is healing quicker than zoo workers had even anticipated.

“He’s still receiving medicine,” says Powell. “It’s not 100% healed, but it is healed enough that he was able to get off of the skateboard. So, he is still separated and we are still watching him. He’s not really getting a lot of outside time. They’re still letting that heal, but just having him elevated enough and be able to get clean air, and no feces or dirt in that wound because of the skateboard.”

Powell says the zoo workers came up with the clever idea to put Bubba on wheels for a few weeks. She says Bubba was a natural on the skateboard.

“It would be great if we could know what he thought because he did move with a greater ease when he was on the skateboard than he did normally,” she says. “He kind of had a little bit more speed than that of a 500-pound tortoise normally would, but he just did really well. And the exciting thing is if other zoos have issues like that, we’ll be able to share that and go, ‘Hey, look what we did and it really worked.’”

Santa stopped by over the weekend and brought several gifts to share among the zoo animals.

“All of our animals are on the nice list. We appreciated Santa Claus taking time out of his busy schedule and paying a visit and showing some love to the animals,” says Powell. “We’ve got a couple animals that – they’re ornery and they’ve made the naughty list a few times. But Bubba is not one of them. He’s just 500 pounds of sweetness.”

You can check out Bubba and his zoo friends seven days a week at the Dickerson Park Zoo.