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A Bird on the
Bus is Worth More Than $97 When the 30-year-old North Portland resident went to Pets on Broadway to reclaim her yellow-naped Amazon parrot, Fred, all she found was an empty cage. Douglas regularly boards Fred at the store, but this time someone had filched her feathered friend. Fred's disappearance devastated her. "I've spent more than half my life with him," Douglas told WW Friday morning. "I'm desperate to get him back. I'll do anything." Fred is no ordinary parrot, Douglas says. He has an expansive vocabulary and a keen ear for music. A fan of Springsteen and Dylan, the peanut butter-loving fowl would screech "shut up" and hang upside down when Douglas dared play punk bands such as Jesus Lizard. As befits a creature of Fred's distinction, his abduction was no run-of-the-mill birdnapping. On Oct. 15, the day Fred disappeared, eagle-eyed Portland police nabbed a man hawking a brightly colored bird on Northeast Sandy Boulevard. The man was Danny Copeland, 42 and unkempt; the bird was Fred, 18 and in distress. Unfortunately, Douglas' theft report had not yet been processed. Instead, the cops took the bird to another Portland woman who had reported 11 tropical birds stolen earlier that day. Since Fred didn't belong to her, the cops released Copeland--and put Fred in his custody. The alleged parrot pilferer flew the coop and quickly auctioned off the bird on a No. 14 Tri-Met bus. He demanded $100 for Fred but settled for $97 from an unidentified woman who was allegedly wearing several diamond rings. (Douglas' parents originally paid $1,000 for the bird.) Copeland told police he took Fred because he needed money. The cops weren't surprised. "There's always been a trade in exotic pets because they're such high-dollar items," says investigating officer Tommy Hebert. For weeks, Douglas papered the city with posters of the missing Fred and placed ads in The Oregonian and Willamette Week. Despite the $500 reward offered by Pets on Broadway for Fred's safe return, Douglas had nearly given up hope of finding the bird's buyer. Just after WW had first spoken to Douglas, however, Fred's new guardian called Douglas, having seen the missing-parrot ad in our paper. "I was overjoyed and relieved to get him back," Douglas crowed. "Friday the 13th turned out to be a really lucky day for me." --Nigel Jaquiss Ticked OffAn unusual ailment in Oregon made headlines in the latest issue of the disease-watcher's Bible, The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. According to the report, published by the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control, 34 members of a religious group from the Albany area flew to Swaziland in April to take part in a church-building project. Shortly after they returned, nine came down with a pronounced fever characterized by chills, fatigue and ring-shaped skin lesions. The mysterious malady turned out to be African tick-bite fever--a potentially fatal rickettsial disease, endemic in sub-Saharan Africa, caused by the Amblyomma tick. The report states that all nine recovered, thanks to the efforts of their local physician. In the process, the nation's epidemiological intelligence system got a useful tip: When recent travelers come down with fever, remember to check for tick bites. --Chris Lydgate FOLLOW-UP Or maybe not. Critics of Measure 58 want to put Oregon's landmark adoption-records law on hold. Bill Pierce, executive director of the National Council for Adoption in Washington, D.C., says his organization has been contacted by Oregon birth mothers who are terrified about being identified. Pierce says he is working with Portland lawyer Franklin Hunsaker to file a suit to prevent the state from unlocking adoptees' birth certificates. "Our intention would be this doesn't ever go into effect," Pierce says "This is going to be going on for months, even years, in Oregon." The basis for the lawsuit, Pierce says, will be that Measure 58 is retroactive and consequently violates privacy rights of women who were promised confidentiality. The NCFA was involved in a similar federal lawsuit in Tennessee after the state legislature there passed a more restrictive open-records bill in 1996 ("Bastard," WW, Sept. 16, 1998). The records were open for a few days before an injunction closed them. Ultimately, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that parents have no constitutional right to privacy from their offspring. The plaintiffs refiled in the Tennessee state court, and the case is still pending resolution. Shea Grimm of Bastard Nation says attorneys for Measure 58 supporters
are working to defend the measure against longtime open-records foe
Pierce and the NCFA. "We knew from day one that it was probable they
would file a lawsuit," she says, "and we were prepared to fight it." Babes in Portland The December issue of Playboy reports that Hugh Hefner's search for the centerfold of the millennium started right here in the Pacific Northwest, and the folks aboard the Playmate 2000 Search Bus liked what they saw during the auditions--particularly in the Rose City: "The Vancouver and Seattle turnouts were eye-openers," the magazine reports, "but Portland really got our blood pumping." Search chronicler Leif Ueland was quoted as saying that "not only were the Portland candidates pretty, but they were also on fire with a kind of animal magnetism that came as a surprise to even our search team members."
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