Cuca

A Robber Put Her Bird in Someone Else’s Hand

Jabin Botsford/The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/

Ana Marte and her bird, Cuca, which is a common term for parrots in the Dominican Republic, where Ms. Marte was born.

By MARC SANTORA and E. C. GOGOLAK
Published: August 2, 2013
Jabin Botsford/The New York Times

Cuca reminds Ms. Marte to take her medicine in the morning.
When her husband died a year ago, the two became even closer. Every morning at 7 a.m. Cuca would wake Ms. Marte, 68, and remind her to take her medicine to control her blood pressure and cholesterol.

Cuca would chatter away in the apartment they shared in the Bronx, easy company that did not ask for much beyond food and affection. Ms. Marte would proudly show Cuca off to the neighbors, as she walked the hallways of her housing complex in the Claremont neighborhood.

Cuca is a Quaker parrot and the two were inseparable. Until Monday, when Cuca was stolen at gunpoint.

Ms. Marte had spent the morning with her bird in a park and was heading home, carrying Cuca in a cage as she entered an elevator at the Morris Houses.

A surveillance video released by the police shows a man in a floppy white hat following Ms. Marte onto an elevator and off, on the 11th floor.

Then he pulled out a gun and demanded the bird.

“I was so afraid,” she said in an interview.

Another camera caught the man fleeing down the stairs and onto the street with his ill-gotten bird, a vibrant mix of green and light gray feathers, with a streak of aqua blue in her tail.

A surveillance video released by the New York City Police Department.

The police said they quickly apprehended the man, Darryyl Walker, 53, and charged him with the robbery. But the parrot had already been sold.

The police released a photo of a bird of the same breed and began a search for the parrot.

Ms. Marte bought the bird four years ago from a Bronx pet shop for $300 and named her Cuca, which is a common term for parrots in the Dominican Republic, where Ms. Marte was born and raised.

Her son, José Lora Marte, 48, said she had been devastated by the loss of her friend.

“She was really sad, as you can imagine,” he said. But, apparently, the thief had not taken the bird far when he sold it. It was recovered only blocks from where it was stolen.

The police recovered Cuca on Friday and the two were reunited at the 42nd Precinct station house, where an overjoyed Ms. Marte could barely contain her happiness.

“Thank you to everyone, to the police, to everyone who helped!” she exclaimed.

Susan Chamberlain, a member of the Long Island Parrot Society who runs 14 Karat Parrot, a mail-order business selling amenities for exotic birds, said parrots and people often formed very close connections.

“Birds, for lack of a better term, tend to fall in love with you,” she said, saying that she has had her own bird, Cracker, a double yellow-headed Amazon, since 1980.

Exotic parrots can command thousands of dollars, and in Britain, according to the Parrot Society UK, there has been a recent rash of thefts.

Ms. Chamberlain said that bird-napping is relatively rare in New York City, but offered some advice to pet owners.

“There are a few things people can do to ensure that people can identify their bird if it was stolen,” she said.

Since 1992, all pet stores are required by New York State to put a numbered band on a bird’s leg. She said owners should keep a record of that number. They could also have a veterinarian implant an identifying microchip in the bird’s chest.

“They can also teach the bird to say something identifiable,” she said. “Some have even taught birds their phone numbers.”

Back at Ms. Marte’s apartment, where she had installed a photo of Cuca in the cage while she was missing, she restored her friend to her perch.

The bird started to eat from a tiny bowl in the cage. “Oh, she’s hungry,” Ms. Marte cooed in Spanish.

She then took Cuca out of the cage again, balancing the bird on her head and shoulders, and then made a phone call to her daughter. She held up the cellphone to the bird’s beak, telling her to speak, “Abre la boca!”

When Ms. Marte retired for the night on Friday, she could rest assured that she would be awaked by the familiar sound of Cuca saying “medicina,” or medicine.

Kirk Semple contributed reporting.