A local volunteer group needs help finding the two sheep that thieves stole last week, from a display in Balboa Park. Those sheep, stolen from the nativity scene at the park - depicting the birth of Jesus.
Each sheep is worth about $1,000 to the Community Christmas Center.
Since 1953, the Center has erected the display near the Organ Pavilion. Someone took off with two sheep sometime Wednesday night.
“Just sad and disappointed,” said Kim Sullivan of the Community Christmas Center.
One sheep was taken from a scene depicting an angel visiting shepherds in a field. The other was taken from the feet of Mary and Joseph as they held the baby Jesus.
“I am angry about that. What could they possibly do with it?” said a woman who walked by to see the display. “You understand sometimes when people steal things they need...this is not something someone needs.”
Adding insult to injury, a local artist spent most of 2016 restoring each of the statues in the display, which Sullivan estimated to be worth $500,000.
“Just on the sheep she spent days,” Sullivan said.
The Center pays for a permit every year to display “The Birth of Christ” in the public park. Sullivan said they’ll take down the remaining statues on Saturday, January 7.
