Unflappable Fred Found Safe but Slightly Ruffled

Less than 48 hours after his abduction from the San Diego Wild Animal Park, Fred, the sidekick cockatoo of the 1970s television series “Baretta,” was found Thursday walking in the middle of a road less than a mile from the park.

The feathered star was fittingly rescued by two television cable employees--one a fan of the cop show--about 8 a.m. Thursday as they were driving to an assignment. After nibbling on a sandwich from the lunch box of one of his rescuers, Fred was safely returned to the Wild Animal Park.

Scott Forrester, a 25-year-old Hemet resident who works for Cable Art in Ramona, heard a radio broadcast reporting the bird’s theft as he headed north on Old Pasqual Road to get to work, San Diego police spokesman Bill Robinson said. However, it wasn’t until a few minutes later, when he was going back down the same stretch of road, with his partner, Johnny Martinez, that he spotted Fred.

“He was just trotting along in the middle of the road, and all these cars were going around him,” Forrester said. “There were about three cars before us, and I was surprised nobody stopped because I even almost hit him.”

Forrester pulled his truck over to the side of the road, and Martinez got out, cautiously approaching Fred. When Martinez knelt near the cockatoo, Fred jumped onto his arm.

“We put him in the truck, set him up on a lunch box, gave him some of my sandwich, and looped back around to the park about a quarter of a mile away,” Forrester said. “We tried to get him to talk because I knew who the bird was, because I used to watch ‘Baretta,’ but he just squawked a little bit.”

The park plans to give the two men a monetary reward for bringing Fred safely back to roost, said Tom Hanscom, spokesman for the San Diego Wild Animal Park.

“It’s a bit unusual that Fred would come so easily to a stranger,” Hanscom said. “He was obviously anxious for somebody to take him in and take care of him.”

Whether through mishandling by his abductors or thrashing in the brush in the San Pasqual Valley, Fred had tattered feathers on his breast, legs and tail, Hanscom said. Upon his return to the park, Fred appeared upset, scared and quiet, but as soon as he saw his trainer, he responded with his stock repertoire of coughing, laughing and saying, “Hello, Fred.”

Fred will spend the next several days quarantined in the park’s hospital, where he will be given a chance to rest and be examined, Hanscom said. He then will be returned to his regular enclosure behind the bird theater.

He was taken from his cage between 4:15 p.m. Tuesday and 8:45 a.m. Wednesday. Birdnappers forced their way through three locked gates to get to his cage in the rear of the park’s bird theater.

The 30-year-old sulfur-crested cockatoo has been performing in educational shows at the San Diego Wild Animal Park since 1984. He was one of three cockatoos that portrayed Robert Blake’s pet in the ABC series about a streetwise cop. During that time he won a Patsy, the animal equivalent of an Academy Award.