Thieves clear Telford back garden pond of koi carp
A fish-collector from Telford who had £400 worth of fish stolen from his pond during the night said he believes the fish were stolen to order by a number of people.
The victim, who did not want to be named, said it would have taken a number of people with various pieces of equipment to steal the 12 fish from his garden pond.
The man woke up on Saturday morning to find the 11 koi carp and one grass carp missing from the pond in the back garden of his property in Southall Road, Dawley.
He said: "They have definitely been stolen because there is some netting on the top and that has been rolled back.
"The pond is in the back garden so I think whoever did it must have been around before and saw that there was a pond in our garden.
"I don't think there is any chance me getting them back because they must have been stolen to order.
"These people know what they are doing. The three females were full of eggs, too, so they will make money from that as well."
The man said he and his son had been collecting fish for years, but said he will probably not collect koi carp again.
He said: "I think I will start keeping goldfish from now on, as they are less likely to be stolen. They must have had a car or a van, a lamp to see where they were going because it's dark in the back garden, and a number of large plastic bags to carry the fish in," he said.
"They weren't small, there was four that were about 12 inches long, one that was 14 inches and the rest were probably eight or nine, so there was a lot of things that needed to be carried."
West Mercia Police have appealed for anyone with information about the incident to contact them on 101, quoting incident number 178N200413.
