Spate of exotic bird thefts leaves SoCal parrot lovers on edge
Michelle Martin has executed most every thing she will be able to consider to seek out the treasured parrots callously stolen from her Orange County feed retailer late final 12 months, their feathers left scattered throughout the store ground.
She’s contacted individuals from Craigslist promoting birds that resemble Cody, a double yellow-headed Amazon, Child Love, an umbrella cockatoo, and Sweetie, a Congo African grey, solely to satisfy with disappointment. She’s misplaced a whole lot of {dollars} to scammers who’ve reached out on social media, avowing they knew the birds’ location and would share it for a value. She’s scoured swap meets that function unique birds, however once more, to no avail.
She even consulted a pet psychic who professed to sense their presence in a neighborhood close to the Mexico border, however determined it was too dangerous to go knocking on doorways on her personal.
The December break-in at Martin’s Feed Barn retailer in Dana Level was one in every of a number of parrot thefts in Southern California in latest months. The feathered creatures, which may retail for as a lot as $6,000 relying on the breed, have been stolen from pet shops, porches, even a veterinarian’s workplace.
Lots of the thefts have an eerie similarity.
Within the Feed Barn caper, safety cameras captured two individuals shrouded in surgical masks and hooded sweatshirts smashing their manner in and making a beeline for Cody, Child Love and Sweetie. The bandits tore the birds from their cages, stuffed them into backpacks and fled.
Alerted by the store’s supervisor, Martin rushed to the shop the following morning, nonetheless in her pajamas, solely to seek out their empty cages and telltale feathers.
“There’s a particular place in hell for those that steal animals,” stated Martin.
In February, about two months after Martin’s birds had been taken, one other break-in unfolded 90 miles north in Calabasas. Safety footage captured two thieves busting via the glass door of the All Animals Veterinary Hospital and making off with 5 parrots that they crammed into backpacks.
In March, thieves hit one other Los Angeles-area retailer, Birds & Extra, in suburban Lawndale.
Proprietor Karen Allen, identified by her nickname “The Parrot Girl,” stated it was her first parrot theft in 5 many years of working her store. Burglars pried open the door simply earlier than 11 p.m. and went straight to the cages the place her most respected birds had been sleeping.
Karen Allen, often known as “The Parrot Girl,” spends time with a pair of her feathered mates, army macaws, at her retailer Birds & Extra in Lawndale.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
They took two African grays that Allen had hand-fed as infants and was planning to promote. Additionally they stole Ruffle, an aged double yellow-headed Amazon that belongs to a lady who was quickly boarding the hen at Allen’s retailer.
“She’s misplaced her child,” Allen stated. “You already know, this was her feathery child. It’s simply heart-wrenching.”
The cages had been padlocked, a measure to maintain the birds from determining the way to unlatch their enclosures and escape. Intelligent parrots can determine even probably the most refined door closure mechanisms inside just a few days, she stated.
The thieves, sporting protecting gloves, bent again the doorways of the metal cages simply sufficient to slip the birds out. They had been gone in minutes.
Allen suspects the burglars had visited the shop and knew the place the African grays had been positioned. And their use of gloves suggests in addition they know birds: Whereas hand-fed parrots are extra docile than their wild counterparts, sticking one’s hand in an unsuspecting hen’s cage may end up in a painful chew.
Army macaws get affectionate at Birds & Extra in Lawndale.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
A number of hen devotees stated the rise in parrot thefts is a mirrored image of their rising value and recognition — and the potential to revenue off black market gross sales.
“Within the 2000s you may purchase a hand-fed African grey parrot for $1,500 and now they’re over $6,000,” stated Dr. Teresa Micco, a veterinarian who treats birds at Level Vicente Animal Hospital in Rancho Palos Verdes. “So there’s this draw for individuals who need to steal as a result of they will flip round and promote the birds for a number of thousand {dollars}.”
The value improve stems not solely from inflation, but in addition a decline within the variety of unique birds on the market. Many longtime breeders have retired and haven’t been readily changed because of the time and dedication wanted to lift child parrots.
Toodles, an umbrella cockatoo, retains an eye fixed on a stranger at Birds & Extra in Lawndale.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
Breeding has additionally grow to be tougher. In previous many years, breeders would pair up wild birds who had expertise reproducing, however in 1992 Congress handed the Wild Fowl Conservation Act, which banned unique hen imports besides beneath restricted circumstances. The birds now reproducing are usually domesticated and don’t have extra skilled birds to information them via the method.
Parrots aren’t the one expensive companions within the crosshairs of pet thieves lately. Invaluable canine breeds resembling French bulldogs — purebred puppies can retail for upward of $3,000 — are widespread targets. Two years in the past, Girl Gaga’s canine walker was shot and her two French bulldogs, Koji and Gustav, kidnapped in a notoriously violent assault on a sidewalk in Hollywood. The canines had been finally returned and 5 individuals had been charged within the crime — together with the lady who returned the canines in hopes of amassing the singer’s provide of a $500,000 reward.
However birds have lengthy been an emblem of fashion and wealth within the U.S. Their vividly coloured feathers and intelligence are a draw to these searching for a much less standard pet than a canine or cat. Due to their lengthy lifespans — some breeds can dwell greater than 50 years — they’re steadily handed all the way down to their house owners’ kids or grandchildren.
Within the Eighties and ‘90s, macaws, with their gravelly squawks, had been all the fashion. The draw for a lot of house owners, not less than initially, centered on aesthetics: The birds had been coveted for vibrant feathers that always served as a vibrant complement to house décor. “If an individual might afford a hyacinth macaw, it was like a standing image,” Micco stated.
However over time, she stated, “individuals began realizing these birds are simply superb they usually’re clever.”
African grays, resembling Martin’s Sweetie, have an unlimited vocabulary and are stated to have the psychological reasoning of a 3-year-old baby. Sweetie might do a spot-on impression of a trash truck, and would dazzle Feed Barn prospects by whistling the theme music from “The Addams Household” or the musical rating to “The Bridge on the River Kwai.” The cheeky hen would flatter passersby with a well-timed wolf whistle, Martin stated.
Different birds can mimic a cellphone ringing or a canine barking, and a few curse like sailors. Parrots could be standoffish — or candy. Most are wryly amusing in their very own manner.
Martin likens them to opinionated toddlers who by no means develop up. The birds are likely to develop deep bonds with their house owners, and that’s factor, Martin says, as a result of it’s a must to preserve a detailed eye on them. Very similar to an unsupervised toddler, “If it’s quiet, chances are high he’s consuming your baseboards or chewing on a wire,” she joked.
Micco, the vet, additionally owns parrots. She recounted how she would repeatedly greet an African grey named Waldo with, “Are you good-looking?” — till he apparently took offense on the concentrate on his appears. “After two years of asking him if he was good-looking, he checked out me and stated ‘sensible,’ ” she stated, laughing. “I nonetheless don’t know the place he acquired that.”
With a mind concerning the dimension of a walnut, parrots are very smart. They dwell in flocks within the wild, and may grow to be bored and remoted in captivity with out stimulation. Their want for companionship was one cause Martin opted to maintain her birds on the feed retailer, the place she spends a lot of her time.
Parrot snatchers aren’t simply focusing on companies.
Luna, an African grey, was absorbing afternoon solar on the entrance porch of her household’s house in Santa Ana in March when she was stolen. Safety digital camera footage confirmed a person rolling Luna’s giant metallic cage off the porch and shoving it at the back of an SUV. Luna flapped wildly as he rushed off together with her.
Her household was distraught, stated Santa Ana Police Sgt. Maria Lopez, and investigators initially weren’t certain the place to focus their search. They acquired a break when an officer charged with checking in with individuals on probation acknowledged a probationer because the suspect caught on video. Authorities searched his house, discovered Luna, and he or she was reunited together with her house owners.
Tales like Luna’s give some hope to those that have misplaced their birds.
On a latest day inside Birds & Extra, Allen fawned over two army macaws enjoying on their picket perches. “That’s not good,” she scolded after one macaw nipped on the different’s tail feathers. Throughout the shop, a macaw Allen had adopted from a hen rescue group known as out a throaty “hi there.”
Allen’s personal hen, an umbrella cockatoo named Toodles, grabbed the facet of her cage and fanned her feathers to vie for consideration.
“I don’t understand how someone takes someone’s baby or someone’s pet that’s like a baby,” Allen stated, gazing lovingly at Toodles. “How do you break one other human being’s coronary heart on function?”
