Park Police announced this morning that they have recovered the nest of Alvin Tinamou and his mate Adela.
Szabina Héja, head of the Airborne Investigative Unit (AIU), made the announcement at a press conference this morning.
“Yesterday afternoon, our team was directed to a Tree outside The Park. Upon investigation, we discovered and later took possession of a nest with a basketball inside it. After extensive testing at our laboratory, we have determined that the nest is that of Alvin Tinamou. Our tests also revealed that the basketball is the same one lent to The Park Museum by Mammalian Daily balls columnist Bailey. Unfortunately, we were unable to find any evidence of the Tinamou eggs. Our Unit continues to search for the eggshells and we are optimistic that we will be successful,” Héja said.
Experts say, however, that since the nest was stolen in mid-June, there is little hope of recovering the eggshells.
“Those chicks would have hatched by early July at the latest,” says Dr. Simon Crow, head of Avian Medicine at the University of West Terrier. “They would, physiologically, almost be adults by now. And the shells surely would have been used for other purposes.”
The AIU head did not comment on the state of the basketball, nor did she give reporters any idea of when the ball might be released to its rightful owner. But she did confirm that both the Interspecial Investigations Unit (IIU) and the Specist and Hate Crimes Unit (SHCU) have been brought in to help in the search for the perpetrator of the crime.