Trespassing little thieves!!!

I never thought that I would get attached to a salamander but I think I have. I still do not like to touch the little thing but I am a little mad right now. We had decided that the salamander would do better if we just put him in our sprinkler box because he did not want to eat in captivity. He was doing much better in his new home. Every time we would go outside to get the mail or just to take the kids to school or go to the store we would check on him to see if he was out from hiding. Most of the time he was out. Well, today when I came home from work (7:00 am), Josh had gone out to get the yard ready for aeration and noticed the sprinkler box lid was off. Well, we know that our kids were not outside at all yesterday after school, so it had to be a neighbor kid. (The kids have been so excited about having him around, that they showed a few of their friends.) Mekenzie noticed one of the neighbor kids (that is not friends with any of my kids) in our yard today, so I tried to hurry to catch him but he was gone before I got over to the sprinkler box. Sure enough the lid was left off again. We have not seen our little friend today and I really hope that he has not been stolen by some little kid that was trespassing in our yard. I hope that if this little kid took our new little friend that he will be returned to our family. Man, I can't believe how upset I am that somebody took something from my kids.