EPILOGUE: I actually ended up calling the Public Works department and they confessed. The shrub was on the boulevard, which is a narrow strip of land on every yard that follows the street and which the city actually owns. Citizens are asked to maintain it by mowing and such. The city likes to plant trees and bushes along the boulevard, and they’re perfectly within their rights to march around town and cut or move things as they see fit. Which is what happened; that bush in particular is an aggressive grower and the Corn & Apple festival was about to be in town, so the city workers were just going along the streets and cleaning up messy shrubbery before visitors showed up.
It did make for an awkward phone call. “Hi, I live on <street> and…I think my shrub was stolen?” [ July 29th, 2014 ]
SFX cue *Hinterland Who’s Who” theme….
cue announcer
The Shubberodent can be found in parts of southeastern Manitoba and into north central South Dakota….
It can be recognized by its shiny pelt, marked with white concentric circles and stars. It’s pelt shines from body oils that makes this subterranean dweller virtually impervious to water.
Its diet consists of deciduous tree roots but will occasionally come to the surface to devour an entire shrub leaving only stumps and the landowners’ wonderment behind.
A nocturnal mammal, the female shubberodent bears a litter of young kits, usually numbering from 6 to 8, in the spring of the year.
For a more complete story of the shubberodent, why not contact the Canadian Wildlife Sevice, in Ottawa?