New Zealand seems like a lovely country that pretty much keeps to itself. Sounds great. I know very little about the country. I’m going to admit that first and foremost.

Things I (think I) know about New Zealand:

• I know it’s next to Australia and New Zealanders hate being called Australian.
• I know for some reason New Zealanders are referred to as Kiwis. Is it a derogatory term? I’m not sure. If it is, I’m sorry. Wikipedia says it’s a source of pride, New Zealand Geographic says it’s offensive. I don’t know.
• I also know Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, the Flight of the Conchords, are from there.
• I’m 87% sure the Lord of the Rings movies were filmed there. I’ve never seen them. I don’t know. Some guy told me that once.
• It’s impossible to paddle to New Zealand from Bells Beach, Australia. At least during the 50-year storm.

That’s it.

However, this week I learned they also take the theft of Alpacas very seriously. We have some serious issues here in America that we are focused on, and unfortunately, alpaca theft is a little low on the list of things we are looking to solve.

In New Zealand, however, they take alpaca theft very seriously.

 

The North Shore, Rodney West Aukland Police Department has detectives working in shifts (probably) to find out who stole Charisma the Alpaca from a paddock.

“Come on, people. We need to find this alpaca,” an officer gently pleads on a video the department posted to their Facebook page that I found way too hilarious. “For the sake of the family, and for the sake of this little guy,” the same officer concluded while petting another alpaca.

Oh, I didn’t tell you about that alpaca? Charisma, the stolen alpaca, acted as a seeing-eye alpaca for his alpaca brother, Bambi, who is blind!

And since the theft of Charisma, Bambi has been depressed and unable to navigate his enclosed field without his brother!

There isn’t a whole lot we can do here in America to help, unfortunately. We all know the international alpaca trafficking network knows no borders, so you can certainly keep an eye out for anyone selling an alpaca from New Zealand.

How do you know if an alpaca is from New Zealand? The alpaca’s accent, of course.

Good luck to the North Shore, Rodney West Aukland Police Department in their search for Charisma! If there’s anything I can do to help, please let me know. Alpaca my bags and head right down!