Adorable Clip Or Animal Cruelty? What Do You Think About This Tortoise Vs. Truck Video?

The internet is a strange place. You can never really predict the kind of stuff that could go viral. Take the case of this Tortoise vs. Truck video that was uploaded to YouTube just four days ago, on August 16, 2014. At the time of writing this article, the video has been featured on the front page of YouTube and has managed to garner millions of eyeballs. It is being shared at amazing rates over several social media websites. The view count? 2.1 million – and climbing up fast!

The video shows a small tortoise trying hard to reach a toy remote controlled RV truck that is only slightly faster than the tortoise and is being controlled by a person. The 34-second clip was uploaded by YouTube user John Walkenbach who we are sure might have never thought it would have reached this level of popularity. The video also seems to have broken the old adage of tortoises being slow, lazy creatures with no real sense of urgency. As made obvious by the clip, this tortoise is as agile as any tortoise could get.

While the uploader has been since then praised for uploading this “adorable” clip, there are several others who are not quite happy at seeing a tortoise desperately running behind a truck on a wooden floor. Many YouTube users have strongly reprimanded the uploader for making the tortoise do what it did. The comments section is filled with comments with people who didn’t seem to have liked the fact that the tortoise was made to run on a wooden floor. A comment by YouTube user Guilherme Sousa reads,

“Tortoises should never be allowed to walk on a flat surface like this, since this type of floor requires the animal to make an extra effort to move around and can be very harmful to its joints, to the point of causing improper bone development and even some pretty bad deformities in some cases, and second, the animal seems to be very annoyed by this situation and, although many people may find this adorable, I do believe this might be considered animal cruelty.”

Do you think the uploader shouldn’t have made the tortoise do this, at least on this surface? Is this animal cruelty?

All said, we would have loved to find out what would have happened had the tortoise managed to finally get to the truck. Maybe a sequel to this one should be uploaded soon? What say?

[Image Via YouTube]