Cheeky kea steals tourist's passport
THE CULPRIT: The kea that pinched the tourist's passport shown here in a photo taken by Yvonne Richardson, who was on the bus at the time.
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Te Anau police have identified a thief who brazenly stole a British man's passport, but will not pursue an arrest or attempt to recover the document.
A police spokeswoman said a Scottish man reported the theft of his passport from a bus heading into Milford Sound earlier this week.
The passport had been in a coloured courier bag that attracted the attention of a cheeky kea when the bus stopped at the Chasm on the Milford road.
While the driver was in a compartment beneath the bus, the kea grabbed the package. When the driver turned back, the startled kea flew off into the bush with the package. It has not been recovered and considering the size of Fiordland, is unlikely to be.
The Scottish man, who did not want to be identified, said he had been waiting for about a month for the passport to be returned from Wellington.
"Being Scottish, I've got a sense of humour so I did take it with humour but obviously there is one side of me still raging," he said.
"My passport is somewhere out there in Fiordland. The kea's probably using it for fraudulent claims or something. I'll never look at a kea in the same way."
A replacement from the British High Commission in Wellington could take as long as six weeks and cost up to $400.
"I was planning to go home to Scotland in August so I'm hoping to get that sorted pretty quickly."
He said the bus driver did not know what was in the package but his "pale expression" convinced him he wasn't joking that it contained a passport.
The Scotsman did not hold the driver or the company responsible. "They do us a great service by bringing stuff in and it was just one of those unfortunate things. It just happens.
"You can't make that sort of stuff up.
- By MARK HOTTON, Southland Times
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Didn't you know? That kea is actually one the the new remote-controlled mechanical replica keas; the Immigration Department's latest in high-tech overstayer detection.
Get over yourself B. Windy. The News doesn't have to be wars, politics and plane crashes to the exclusion of all else ad nausium. People are allowed a chuckle once in a while.(!)
@kea: The man, who works at Milford Sound, had been waiting for a number of weeks for the passport to be returned from Wellington and was expecting it to arrive by bus on Tuesday.
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/kea-makes-off-man-s-passport-2762196
Rumours have it a bagpipe was nicked from another bus in the same area. The Scottish Customs have been put on high alert, and have been advised to look for a small Scotsman with a prominent beak.
I have seen a Kea try and steal a ski boot, was to big to fly with but that didn't stop him/her dragging it across the ski field car park with the owner in chase. Boot was recovered though.
C'mon Windy Bill! we are just having a laugh.......its FRIDAY! a long weekend...cheer UP man! the Kea is my 2nd favourite bird TUI 3rd and......KIWI 1st! ;-)
How does tosh like this make the news? Surely this journalist has more important stories to cover. Was it his first day?
Concerned reader, B Windy
when we lived in the deep south and visited places inhabited with keas we made sure we had a pack of biscuits to throw under the bushes and cars far away from vehicle - never had a problem with them ripping off our windscreen wipers etc. imagine the hysteria if a yank had had their passport pilfered! cheeky little buggers
@ #8 That would be Al Keada...
Keas are also implicated in the collapse of the world economy and are known members of the Illuminati.
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nothing to do with me.I live 11,000m away. But that is a pretty funny story and some of the comments are funnier still. cheered me up at 7.20 am