Canadian-style mischief tends toward the curious

It’s been a long, hot summer of peculiar mysteries, from Belleville’s missing mannequins to the sad saga of Ryan Lochte. The latter mystery not being how a group of American swimmers were robbed at gunpoint (or not), but how a top-tier athlete in the bright glare of the Olympic spotlight thought he could spin the part of drunken hooligan into sympathetic victim and get away with it. It seems the summer news cycle was dominated by all sorts of dummies.

Here in Ontario, the season kicked off with a rash of mannequin thefts in a crime spree stretching from May through July. Belleville Police investigated a series of shop breakins, successful and attempted. The strangely specific perpetrators stole only female mannequins; sometimes, just torsos. Shopkeepers responded with a resounding: “Yuck.” In total, 11 display models were stolen in as many weeks. One child-sized figurine left an arm behind. It’s not known if any of the robberies could be copycat crimes, or if all the thefts were the work of one mannequin mastermind.

The story got significant traction; readers were captivated by the figurine filchers’ inscrutable motives. The thieves were not tempted by cash or merchandise; they even stripped the clothing off several dummies before making their escape. As with many pranks, folks found it hard to take the crimes too seriously. Like cow tipping, or garden gnome liberation, they condemned the mischief with a grin. No doubt the break-ins were less amusing to shopkeepers who had to replace damaged doors and broken windows, though generally speaking, they agreed things could have been worse.

Then, earlier this month, someone broke into a taxidermy shop and made off with 69 sets of moose, elk and stag antlers. The unlikely merchandise is valued at an astonishing $1.5 million. Caledon OPP are searching for several suspects, who also made off with a pickup truck and two ATVs.

Setting aside the question of why people collect ossified animal trophies, it must be asked why anyone would want so many? One wonders if topless, antlered mannequins might soon begin photobombing vacationers in Ontario parks.

Together, the robberies suggest a massive outdoor art installation, like the sudden appearance of naked Trumps in five major U.S. cities. The mystery of the Donalds, at least, was short-lived: Activist collective Indecline gleefully took credit for the lurid statues, which were swiftly removed, though millions of viewers lamented they could not be unseen.

The antler incident wasn’t the only bold theft for the Animal Planet archives. Ten bee colonies were stolen from an apiarist near Portland, north of Kingston, in July. The complicated heist involved an offroad approach through a hay field in the stealth of night, when sluggish bees are less likely to put up a fuss. Several strong suspects would have been needed to make off with hives as heavy as 200 lbs and rather unforgiving of jostling. The thieves also made off with 16 nuclear colonies — small boxes of bees paired with a queen — intended to start new colonies.

By morning the discouraged beekeeper had lost half a million of her charges.

Unfortunately for the victim, the chance of identifying half a million abducted bees is slim. But the motive for stealing the colonies — worth about $1,000 apiece — is easier to guess. With bees under threat from colony collapse disorder, healthy pollinators have become a hot commodity.

These mysteries may remain unsolved, but they are peculiarly Canadian, in contrast to the stunts of our American neighbours, exposed in record time, but a very different brand of mischief.