Police return stolen birds to Jerusalem zoo; thieves 'knew exactly what to steal'

36 birds, among them several valuable and rare breeds, were apparently targeted when taken from the capital’s Biblical Zoo; many said to be in poor health upon return

Police have returned 36 birds, among them several rare breeds, to Jerusalem’s Biblical Zoo after they were stolen and taken to a village in the West Bank, a law enforcement spokesman said Friday.

Three burglars are said to have broken into the zoo on Thursday night and grabbed the birds before fleeing to Hableh.

Detectives in the Northern District Border Police located the stolen birds and arrested a suspect, returning the birds to the zoo within 12 hours of them being taken.

The suspect arrested for questioning is a resident of southern Israel, police said.

The birds — worth some NIS 1.2 million ($331,000) — included six macaws, a southern red-billed hornbill, 20 lorikeets and several others whose breeds were not specified.

In a statement carried by Hebrew-language media, Jerusalem Biblical Zoo Director Sigalit Hertz surmised the burglars were veteran animal traffickers who knew “exactly what to steal.”

Birds from the macaw family are particularly sought after by bird traffickers and are considered an endangered species, with several breeds already extinct. The burglars stole macaws of the hyacinth and blue-throated breeds.

Lorikeets, though targeted in illegal trafficking attempts, are less rare.

Though they were returned to the zoo, several rescued birds were in poor health due to the difficult conditions the thieves transported and held them in, police said Friday.

“All of the species are protected wildlife, and some are even in serious danger of extinction in the wild,” the spokesperson added.

Police believed that the zoo burglary was one of several incidents perpetrated by a single animal trafficking gang in recent months.

Law enforcement suspects that in late March, smugglers in the same gang stole rare parrots from the Gan Garoo Zoo in northern Israel. The break-in caused the deaths of several baby birds, Maariv reported at the time.

Investigators are still trying to solve the Gan Garoo Zoo break-in, along with an earlier bird burglary at a petting zoo in Kibbutz Beit Zera.

Israel Police are additionally investigating an animal smuggling ring responsible for trafficking several monkeys and lion cubs into Israel via Jordan and Egypt.