A 400-pound sculpture of a mother rhino and a baby with tear in its eye was stolen from outside a Shingle Springs office building last weekend, but its owner got good news Thursday when the one-of-a-kind piece was found next to a large trash bin outside an auto parts dealership in Cameron Park.

Robert Deitz II, founder of Government Technology Solutions, said he calls the sculpture "Poachers" and it symbolizes the wildlife crisis in Africa.

"I go to Africa regularly and I am hugely involved with conservation," Deitz said.

The sculpture was carved out of single sandstone boulder for Deitz by artist Bryn Taurai Mteki of Zimbabwe.

"I paid him $6,000, for it but if I took this to a gallery it might go for $25,000," Deitz said.

When it went missing over the weekend, he dropped everything and made sure that local artists and every gallery in Sacramento had photographs. The big break came when a photo appeared in the Mountain Democrat newspaper.

Deitz thinks that the people who hauled away the sculpture probably did not know what they had. He is interested in knowing if anybody attempted to sell it before it was dumped on Cambridge Drive.

One person could not have carried it away, and he is offering a $500 reward for information leading to the arrest of the culprits.

The sculpture will return to its spot outside his office, but from now on it also will be guarded by surveillance cameras, Deitz said.

Valuable sculpture found next to Cameron Park trash bin

By David Richie - drichie@sacbee.com