By msnbc.com staff
Perhaps he ventured off to warn other Once-lers about threats to the environment.
The movie version of Dr. Seuss' The Lorax.
But more likely, the Lorax -- in this case a 2-foot-tall, 300-pound bronze statue that resided in La Jolla, Calif., on the estate of Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss -- was stolen.
Property manager Carl Romero told the San Diego Union Tribune that he and Audrey Geisel, Dr. Seuss’ 90-year-old widow, discovered the statue was missing on Monday morning as they were walking through the garden.
The statue stood beneath a century-old Italian Stone Pine, according to LATimes.com. Romero told the Times that the pine inspired the tree from the book “Horton Hears a Who.” In the story, Horton, an elephant, sits on a branch of the tree.
Romero saw footprints in the garden, a sign that a thief had dragged the statue to the road and lifted it over a fence, the Tribune reported. The only Seuss character at the Geisel estate was created by Lark Grey Dimond-Cates, Audrey Geisel's daughter and Dr. Seuss' stepdaughter.
“I want very badly to get our little Lorax back home where he belongs,” Dimond-Cates told the Tribune. “Wherever he is, he’s scared, lonely and hungry. He’s not just a hunk of metal to us. He was a family pet.”
The statue, valued at $10,000, featured the Lorax, a squat, orange-whiskered creature, standing atop a wooden stump. The word “Unless” was inscribed on the base, a reference to Lorax's warning that “unless” someone plants the last remaining tree seed, they will disappear from the world.
Universal Pictures recently released a movie loosely based on the story.
Watch The Lorax trailer
Theodor Geisel died in 1991 at age 87.
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