Police Return Stolen Parrots to Jerusalem Zoo After Midnight Heist

Detectives from the Border Police returned 36 parrots, including some rare species, to Jerusalem’s Biblical Zoo after they had been stolen and taken to a village in the West Bank overnight.

It is reported that three burglars were involved in yesterday evening's break-in at the zoo. A police spokesperson mentioned that they apprehended one suspect, an inhabitant from southern Israel, for further questioning.

The total value of these birds amounts to approximately NIS 1.2 million ($331,000). The collection includes six macaws, one Southern red-billed hornbill, and twenty lorikeets.

Members of the macaw family are highly coveted by bird smugglers and are classified as an endangered species, with some varieties having become extinct. Among those stolen were hyacinth and blue-throated macaws.

Although lorikeets are still subject to illegal trafficking efforts, they are not as uncommon.

The police think that the zoo heist might be connected to multiple break-ins carried out recently by the same group of wildlife traffickers. Authorities are currently working on solving two recent burglaries at Gan-Garoo Zoo and a petting zoo located in Kibbutz Beit Zera.

“The suspects, members of the group that stole the parrots, fled by travelling to the West Bank to the village of Hableh, next to Qalqilya,” a police spokesman says.

Although the birds have now been returned to the zoo, some of them are not in good condition because of the harsh circumstances in which the thieves transported and kept them, according to the police.

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