A Shropshire Koi keeper has been left stunned by the theft of as many of 30 of her pet fish.
Rachel Adams, from Maesbrook near Shrewsbury discovered the theft when she went to see if they needed feeding during last week.
Instead of the expected hungry, colourful fish she was greeted by an almost empty pond which only contained two remaining Koi. Miss Adams, who took over care of the pond and fish when she moved there five years ago thinks whoever stole the Koi must have been a professional to remove so many large fish without being noticed and speculates that they may have used electro-fishing techniques to capture so many big fish from such a deep pond.
Miss Adams thinks the fishy haul could be worth as much as £2000, and estimated that the largest fish which she claims weighed about 50lbs could be worth £500 by itself.
A spokesman for West Mercia Police said the theft had been reported to them, and was thought to have occurred some time between January 4 and January 11. Police are appealing for information and ask that anyone who may have seen anything suspicious or been offered fish for sale to contact the Oswestry police station by calling the 101 number or alternatively, the free Crimestoppers line 0800 555 111.
Sadly Koi are often the target of opportunistic thieves due to the popular misconception that all large Koi are worth huge sums of money. In fact only a few very high grade fish of known provenance are worth the big prices often bandied about in newspapers, and stolen fish are unlikely to attract big money offers as no serious collector would risk the health of their fish by introducing an unknown fish to their pond.
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