Rare Birds Stolen From English Museum

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Aug 15th 2009 at 4:01PM

Art thefts at museums are regrettably fairly common but this may the first I've heard of a bird theft. England's Natural History Museum at Tring says that someone has been walking off with their rare bird specimens. The thieves have stolen around 300 bird skins from an archive of rare tropical birds. The thefts were discovered in June after a break-in but museum officials aren't sure when they were actually stolen. The examples chosen included a number of brightly-colored tropical birds and the thieves could have stolen them for a collector or for other uses. The colorful plumage could end up in fishing lures, dresses or even costume jewelry. Professor Richard Lane, Director of Science at the Museum, said that the "birds that were stolen formed part of the nation's natural history collection, painstakingly assembled over the last 350 years."

[via AP]

Tags: birds, museum, natural history, NaturalHistory, theft

Filed under: Crimes and Misdemeanors

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

neworleansgwm Aug 15th 2009 4:07PM

It never ceases to amaze me at the depths you will see your fellow humans. The disrespect for others is just amazing...

factorycat Aug 15th 2009 8:36PM

Cloning, definitely cloning.

nev Sep 4th 2009 4:41PM

i did volunteer work in this museum for a while. i'm surprised more didn't get stolen. there are huge rooms full of ceiling-high cabinets, each filled with draws stuffed with amazing birds. there's so many, 300 could easiuly have gone missing without anyone noticing untill one of the specimins was needed for something.