FEARS: Danny Brown, owner of the Three Oaks Animal Kabin at the Courtyard Centre in Lytchett Minster

A PET centre has been hit by bird thieves for the second time in a month.

Up to 80 birds, including canaries, finches and doves, worth up to £2,500 in total, were stolen from the Three Oaks Animal Kabin, at the Courtyard Centre, Lytchett Minster, overnight on Thursday.

Just over three weeks earlier, £10,000 worth of exotic birds, including parrots, were taken in a similar night raid.

Centre owner Danny Brown believes the same people are responsible for both thefts and are targeting his shop.

He said: "It is too much of a coincidence for it to happen in the same month and to the same place.

"They knew what they were going for and where they would find them.

"Whoever it was left the cheap, run-of-the-mill birds like the budgies and cockatoos."

Mr Brown said that it was his breeding birds, which are kept in a separate room at the back of the shop, which had been taken this time around.

He said a padlock had been ripped off the door to the room and the thieves had also forced the locks off each aviary they raided.

The Lytchett centre boasts one of the largest ranges of birds in the south and also sells hamsters, rabbits, kittens and other small pets.

Mr Brown said he now feared the next target would be parrots worth up to £20,000 and that he was considering moving into a caravan on the site for security.

Police are looking to talk to anyone with information on the thefts.

A police spokesman said: "We would like to speak to anyone offered birds for sale at an unusually low price or in unusual circumstances."

Anyone with any information can call Dorset Police on 01202 222222 or the Crimestoppers line on 0800 555 111.

7:00am Monday 31st December 2007

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