It turned out that no one had registered the microchip — which ironically Micco, then a vet tech, had put into the bird in 2006 — so paper sales records were traced to Animal Lovers pet store in Torrance. Surprisingly, the shop kept its old paper records and made note of the band number that was originally on the bird’s leg.

“We both kept records and we had jotted the band number on our sales slip” when the bird was sold, said Tomi Takemoto of Animal Lovers.