Cops in Oklahoma have issued an urgent appeal to some bird-brained thieves: Please stop stealing our penguins!

Four large plastic penguin statues – 6-feet-tall and 300 pounds apiece – were swiped in Tulsa during the past three days, with two later dumped in the Arkansas River.

There are 65 penguins around the city, each painted by a different artist as part of a zoo fund-raiser called Penguins on Parade, and police now must guard them all to thwart further thefts.

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Folks in Pennsylvania will do anything to get a buzz.

Cops in Berwick say thieves are stealing vanilla extract from supermarkets and drinking it to get drunk. Some stores have removed the product, which has the same alcoholic kick as schnapps or vodka.

“We kept finding bottles and boxes [of vanilla extract] in the parking lot,” said Bill Jones, manager of Boyer’s Food Market.

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A department-store Santa has been sacked – because his beard is not bushy enough.

Tom Galletti had worn a fake beard for 16 years at the Stoneridge Mall in Pleasanton, Calif., but managers there said parents had asked for a Santa with a full natural beard – something Galletti doesn’t have.

“Christmas is in the heart, not in the beard,” a dejected Galletti said.

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Talk about a sour note! Music teacher Lois Emrich allegedly threatened to shoot any of her young pupils who didn’t play their instruments correctly.

The fourth-grade teacher at the Liberty Elementary School in Carpentersville, Ill., also allegedly told one youngster there was a “blood spot” under his chair and a storage closet full of bodies of those she had already killed.

“I was just appalled by how explicit she was and how detailed she was,” said Cass Garcia, whose 9-year- old son, Frank, was in the chair over the “bloodstain.”

Officials are investigating.

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The feces is flying at Texas A&M University, where cadets have been accused of hazing freshmen by urinating on them and dousing them with water and horse manure.

One cavalry leader has already been suspended, and cops say assault charges could be filed against some students.

The school, in College Station, has had frequent problems with hazing. Earlier this year, some cadets were photographed bound with duct tape, their genitals exposed.