The old-timers are just shaking their heads.

Something like this has never happened before, and it's just terrible.

Last Sunday, in the early hours before the Kaua'i Farm Fair opened, thieves made off with more than a dozen plants from the Kaua'i Bonsai Club display booth.

"They so sad," said Kaua'i Farm Bureau president Roy Oyama.

The miniature trees are meticulously shaped and pruned to achieve an aesthetic that is part art, part horticulture. It is a pursuit that requires patience and years of meticulous care.

And now they're gone.

Irreplaceable.

It's not so much the monetary value of the plants, though bonsai can sell for thousands of dollars.

It's the attachment each grower has for his plant, cultivated tenderly for years, sheltered and cherished like part of the family.

"Most of my plants are raised from young," said Masaki Teshima, president of the Kaua'i Bonsai Club. He's in his 80s now, and has been raising bonsai for 50 years. A plant he had looked after and loved for more than 20 years was stolen from the fair. He wonders if it's being cared for properly. Or at all.

Oyama sees the loss as part of the larger problem of theft of agricultural products. The Farm Bureau has been trying to get legislation passed to allow stiffer penalties for stealing from farms and farmers.

"Agricultural products are a target because it's so simple," Oyama said. Whether it's theft of valuable palm trees from nurseries or, as happened to him recently, the pilfering of a bucket of high-end yellow zucchini, thieves know not much will happen even if they're caught.

But he's closely following his case of the accused zucchini thief and waiting for his day in court.

"I'd like to see the guy put away, not heavy, but maybe a month. And do some community service."

But what happens to the stolen plants?

The Bonsai Club members can't imagine that someone would try to sell the plants on Kaua'i.

"Everybody knows each other," Teshima said.

The Kaua'i Farm Bureau disseminated pictures of the missing plants to Kaua'i police and to the airlines, in case the thieves try to move the plants off-island. A reward has been established for information leading to the recovery of the trees.

But Teshima has resigned himself to the idea that he'll never see his bonsai again.

"It's sad to see somebody steal these. They don't really know the value of it."

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.