

“I’ve been kind of keeping it under wraps.” “I hadn’t told anybody I had them,” he said. Martinez said he doubts the thieves were after the conures when they smashed a back bedroom window to enter the house while he and his wife were at work and the children were at school.

He has also run large newspaper ads, combed the weekend swap meets and passed out flyers offering a reward and “no questions asked” in return for the birds. Martinez said he has called every pet shop in Ventura County, asking them to keep an eye open for people trying to unload conures. They’d crawl under the covers and fall asleep by my feet. In the short time he had the conures, Martinez had grown close to the downy-soft, friendly creatures, he said.
