Canoga Park High Rustlers Nab Sheep, Kill Fish : Mystery Surrounds Disappearance of Ewe From Campus Pen

It was tough enough on students at Canoga Park High School this week when the teachers struck.

Then the rustlers struck.

Thieves entered the locked agriculture class compound at the edge of the Topanga Canyon Boulevard campus and stole Daffodil, a full-grown sheep being raised as a San Fernando Valley Fair project by 16-year-old Danny Wahl.

The heist may have involved a hoist: Officials said the 150-pound ewe was mysteriously lifted out of a fenced pen that was secured by a padlock with a combination known only to agriculture students.

Los Angeles Unified School District police said they have no suspect in the animal theft, described as the first in memory at the school. But there was no shortage of theories around the campus as to what may have happened.

Senior Prank?

Some wondered whether the class of ’89 might have done it since graduating seniors in the past have occasionally released farm animals to wander around the school. “You have senior pranks this time of year,” said Gabrielle Rubinstein, 18, president of the school’s Future Farmers of America chapter.

Others, both students and parents, suggested that striking teachers might be holding the sheep hostage to protest agriculture teacher Steve Pietrolungo’s decision to cross the picket line this week. He is one of 25 Canoga Park High teachers, out of 94, who refused to strike.

Most blamed outsiders for the sheep-napping, thought to have taken place either Sunday or Monday. Said Pietrolungo: “I don’t think it’s tied in to the strike. I think somebody needed something to eat.”

Added school police officer Tom Ervin: “Mother’s Day was Sunday. Maybe it was somebody’s Mother’s Day dinner.”

Outside the fenced campus, strikers condemned the sheep theft. They said they consider Pietrolungo a friend, despite his refusal to join them on the picket line. “Most of us realize the reason Steve stayed in is because of the animals that are out there in his ag area,” said history teacher Dan Smilanick.

Metal shop teacher Bill Seemann doubted that any striker would take student livestock. “We’re not that hungry yet. Give us another three weeks,” he joked.

District officials said the theft was the second campus incident involving animals this week.

They said vandals climbed into a hallway through an open window and used a key to enter a science classroom, where they used soap and syrup to poison a teacher’s collection of fish.

The loss was set at $940, according to a district spokeswoman, who was unable to identify the teacher who owned the fish. She could not say how many fish there were or whether the teacher was working or a striker, because school police investigators had erased many facts from their report, she said.

Principal Charles Molina said Friday that there had been no other incidents of vandalism or theft during the strike at the campus, which has an enrollment of 1,900.

Agriculture students, who were among the 700 Canoga Park High pupils who continued going to class despite the strike, weren’t taking any chances, however.

Wahl and some of his classmates said they were taking turns standing guard over the 245 steers, ewes, lambs, turkeys, rabbits and chickens in the tiny farm compound. They said random checks of the corrals and pens are being made at night by Pietrolungo and others.

Wahl said he is offering the $25 he has saved toward buying additional livestock as a reward for the return of his ewe. He described the animal as having a white face and a black nose and said it was last seen wearing a beige wool coat.

“I want it back,” he said. “I’m just afraid it was taken by somebody who was real hungry.”