Opie the parrot safe and sound after quite an ordeal.
Image Credit: Facebook - Ed's World of Critters & Supplies
March 21, 2024 - 2:44 PM
A pricey parrot was stolen from a pet store in Salmon Arm earlier this week, but today the bird was recovered and has already been sold.
Jenny Ritchie, an employee at Ed’s World of Critters and Supplies in Salmon Arm, is glad that Opie the parrot is safe and sound.
“We are overjoyed and he’s actually already been re-homed. One of our regular customers was saving up for him and she actually contributed towards the reward we were offering for him,” she said.
“When I messaged her that we got him back she got the rest of the money together and came right in. She told me when she left that she was naming him Opie.”
The $1,600 bird was stolen from the story at around 11:30 a.m. on March 19.
“What basically had happened is there's a little access panel to the little cleaning area right next to his cage and apparently there was a customer coming in and one staff member was dealing with another customer and the other was in the fish room.
"We don’t have inside cameras, we just have outside cameras. But we saw someone come in with an unzipped bag and leave with a zipped one around that time so we had our suspicions,” Ritchie said.
The store was offering a $600 reward for Opie’s return, but he was spotted near the store this morning, March 21.
“We had received a report that somebody had seen him being walked with somebody down the street so one of my staff went and confronted him and got him back,” she said.
READ MORE: Salmon Arm RCMP on the hunt for a parrot thief
She can’t be sure why someone would steal a parrot.
“It was presumably about the money but I don’t know. It was probably just an impulse thing. Either way we were just more worried about the bird than anything and we just wanted him to be back and safe and he is,” she said.
Ritchie said pet theft is not something the store had problems with in the past.
“It’s not generally not something we usually concern ourselves with. Shoplifting is another matter that happens in every business. We did have a fish stolen once but that was by high school students,” she said.
“We were just really concerned for the bird’s safety and we’re super glad that he’s home and his fated owner has him.”
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