Had to go down quite the rabbit-hoke to find a reference, here:
leningradpobeda.ru/…/leningradskiy-zoopark-v-gody… (in Russian)
It says the tortoise survived and gives no more detail. Fair to guess that they didn’t just kill it.
Comment on The Fate of the Reptiles of the Leningrad Zoo
wabafee@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
Wow so all of those hardship they killed it?
jdr@lemmy.ml 23 hours ago
Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 21 hours ago
Star tortoise lifespan is 35 to 80 years, better care longer life, and the fact it handled the cold and deprivation so well suggests it was an adult to begin with. So it probably lived awhile longer and then died a natural death, and some nuance shifted in the translation.