Peninsula Daily News
PORT ANGELES — A bear statue swiped from a downtown store last month is back — battered but welcomed.
The hand-carved soapstone figure of a bear with a salmon in its mouth, which was priced at $1,249, disappeared from Necessities & Temptations gift shop the Monday before Christmas.
Owner Edna Petersen offered a $200 reward for its return.
“We don’t know who took it, but the wanderer is home,” she said Friday.
The statue was returned by “a really nice man who suddenly got a hot bear,” she said.
“Mr. Bear now has a broken foot, and he lost his dinner somewhere because the fish is gone,” Petersen said, but the statue is back on display at the store at 217 N. Laurel St., Port Angeles, after being returned at about 5 p.m. Thursday.
David Richardson, who is known to collect bears, found the statue on his porch in Sequim when he returned from a trip to Seattle on Thursday, Petersen said.
The statue “was on his front porch, and he went into his house and picked up your newspaper” — the Peninsula Daily News published a story Wednesday about the theft and reward — “and promptly brought it to the Sequim police, who took it to the Port Angeles police, who brought it back to me,” Petersen said.
Richardson donated his $200 reward to the Olympic Peninsula Humane Society, she said.
“He’s a hero with our bear and most especially that he’s donating the reward to the Humane Society,” Petersen said.
Richardson said he preferred not to comment.
The statue is about 8 inches by 10 inches. Petersen had estimated its weight at about 20 pounds, but she said the Port Angeles police officer who returned it said the weight was closer to 40 pounds, Petersen said.
It is a one-of-a-kind item, carved by Wendy Hook of Douglas Creek Sculpture Co. of Riggins, Idaho.
It had been on display in front of the store’s fireplace. Since it was in full view of the cash registers, none of the surveillance cameras throughout the store were focused on it.
It disappeared during a busy day, when the store was full of Christmas shoppers.
Anyone with information about the theft can phone the Port Angeles Police Department at 360-417-4545 or North Olympic Crime Stoppers — which pays up to $1,000 cash reward for information that leads to an arrest and the filing of felony charges and accepts anonymous tips — at 800-222-8477.
Because the statue is now broken, it won’t be sold, but it will be on view as “part of the history of the store,” Petersen said.
“He has more character” now, she said.