From stolen jewelry, to bank robberies, and now to stolen bugs. Spiders and insects were taken from the Philadelphia Insectarium and Butterfly Pavilion last month. The stolen bugs valued at more than $40,000. With 7,000 critters missing, including a 6-eyed sand spider that is highly venomous, this bug heist is the largest of them all.
“We found that the majority 80 to 90 percent of the creatures that we had in the museum were taken,” CEO at the Philadelphia Insectarium and Butterfly Pavilion John Cambridge said. “”We found out that the heist happened over a course of 4 days, we went in on Friday afternoon and it took twelve hours to discover the extent of it. It was surreal that everything was just gone.”
The Philadelphia police believe this was an inside job because two jerseys which workers get when hired, were stabbed into the wall with knives.
The Insectarium runs events such as school tours, summer camps, travel shows and birthday parties. This missing insects and spiders have a big impact on there business and profit. On the Philadelphia Insectarium and Butterfly Pavilion website there is no news about the stolen critters. It only informs the public that the second and third floor is undergoing renovations until Nov. 3, 2018.
Questions still remain about the bugs, especially because the tanks and the animals are not that easy to maintain without proper knowledge and care for them.
Cambridge said, “We only got a handful back, we are not holding our breath to get them returned, we almost hope that they were sold to someone who knows how to care for them, rather than just missing.”
The staff at the Insectarium want the critters back because they account for a huge part of the missing exhibit.
“We shut down the 2nd and 3rd floor as a response to everything and are rebuilding the exhibits from scratch, calling it our time of lemonade. The plan is to rebuild them back and better than before,” Cambridge said.
Still the question remains, why did they do it and did they realize what they were doing?
“The individuals who carried out the crime, I don’t think realized the severity of their actions, they were fairly young. It’s unfortunate but stealing cash from the register would have been a less serious crime. People do dumb things, I hope it doesn’t follow them around for the rest of their lives,” Cambridge said.
