Discriminating thieves with a taste for the extravagant stole three exotic birds, including a rare talking parrot worth $1,000, from a pair of local pet stores this week.
At one store, Petology in Manheim Township, the birdnapper stuffed the creature into an empty, zippered baby car seat while two accomplices chatted up unsuspecting employees, an owner said.
At the other, SuperPetz in Lancaster Township, the thief apparently picked on the wrong bird — a pricey but ornery green conure that might have bitten him — before settling for a $650 brown-headed parrot, a manager said.
While thefts of such exotic birds may seem rare, especially in broad daylight, newspaper records show they are anything but. In fact, thieves have walked off with about two dozen birds worth more than $18,000 since 1993.
"You think, 'Who would steal a bird?' But then you look at the value of them and say, 'Whoa. OK,'" said Manheim Township police Lt. Doug Sing. "It sure beats shoplifting something if you're going to resell it."
The most exotic of the stolen birds is the African Grey Congo Parrot taken from Petology at about 5:45 Wednesday night. Store workers were caring for the $1,000 parrot, named Wooey Bird, while its owner, a 61-year-old Lancaster woman, was on vacation.
"This woman has had this pet for years," said Judy Huber, a co-owner of Petology, at 862 Plaza Blvd., near Park City Center. "I called her. She is sobbing on the phone. She is devastated."
Huber said the parrot, which has a wide vocabulary and can speak its own name, is on a special diet and becomes edgy in any new environment. She is worried about its health.
"When he gets nervous, he's going to start pulling his feathers out like crazy," she said, "and once they get down to skin, they can almost destroy their body."
Petology is offering a "substantial" but undisclosed reward for the safe return of the parrot. Huber said she believes the theft was the work of four suspicious customers — two men and two women — working together to distract employees.
One of the men asked Huber for a job application, while one of the women browsed in the books section and tried to chat up a Petology worker.
"Oh, I'd really like to work in a pet store," the woman said to the employee, who then had her back turned to the five dozen or so caged birds in the rear of the store.
Meanwhile, the other couple unhooked the latch on the parrot cage, stuffed it in the baby seat and hurried out of the store, Huber said. Outside, at his car, the man frantically motioned to the other woman still inside to hurry up.
It was the second bird theft in as many days at Petology. On Tuesday, as workers were cleaning out the bird cages, someone apparently made off with a yellow-sided conure selling for $479, Huber said.
That same day, a thief stole a brown-headed parrot from its unlocked cage at SuperPetz in the Manor Shopping Center. The bird had been for sale for about $650, a manager said today.
Store workers noticed the empty cage after another bird, a green conure, got out of its cage and began flying around the store. They think the thief first tried to steal that bird but, given the conure's aggressive nature, it may have bitten him. So the thief took the parrot instead.
The three birds stolen this week are worth a total of about $2,129.
Bird thieves have struck numerous times here in recent years. They often try to sell the birds to other area pet stores or, possibly, over the Internet.
At Petology in 2005, they stole a double yellow-headed Amazon parrot priced at $1,395 and an ornery Senegal valued at $479.
At the same store in 2003, thieves stole a baby Amazon bird and a baby Cockatoo bird, each worth $1,395, according to newspaper records.
Thieves stole five parrots worth a total of $5,200 from a Paradise pet store in 1999, and an $1,800 Moluccan cockatoo and blue Indian ringneck parrot from the same store in 1996, records show.
In 1993, burglars broke into a city pet store and stole a $3,000 Moluccan cockatoo.
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