Tiny bonsai tree worth $2K is stolen from museum, abandoned and recovered but was 'severely pruned'
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A tiny 60-year-old bonsai tree worth $2,000 to $3,000 was reported stolen from a nonprofit Seattle area museum Monday.
It was recovered Wednesday after apparently being abandoned and spotted by someone who had heard media accounts of the theft, the Seattle Times reports.
However, it had been “severely pruned,” officials at the Pacific Bonsai Museum said. “Unfortunately, decades’ worth of work has been undone in two days,” curator Aarin Packard told the newspaper. But “the good news is that the tree will survive and hopefully, within years, we will be able to restore it to the work of art that it once was.”
Federal Way police said a man spotted the abandoned tree from his third-floor apartment located a couple of miles from the museum and called authorities. News accounts describe the tree as either 16 inches or 23 inches high.
An investigation is continuing.
The crime follows a rash of bonsai thefts at various Pacific Northwest locations, KIRO reports.
The Federal Way Mirror also has a story.
