For the second time, someone has vandalized the Heron’s Watch sculpture on the corner of Bridge and Weldon in downtown Sackville.
Sometime on Saturday night or early Sunday morning, a 6-foot tall sculpture of a heron was toppled, with legs of the bird bent and cracked. One of two duck sculptures was broken off its legs and stolen. Another remains in place.
RCMP Sergeant Eric Hanson says that surveillance video acquired from Rod Allen Co. across the street shows, “a person climbed on top of the sculpture and it subsequently tipped over.” Hanson was unable to provide further details, and said “the person responsible has not yet been identified,” but the matter remains under investigation.
The sculpture was installed in 2016 and features three bronze cast birds created by artist Christian Toth. In 2023, the legs of a large heron (dubbed Erin the Heron by the artist) were damaged and repaired by the municipality.
Sackville resident Francois Giroux first noticed the latest damage on Sunday morning around 10am. A worker at the nearby Salvation Army Thrift Store says the sculpture was intact on Saturday at 8pm, so the vandalism happened in the meantime.
Giroux posted images of the vandalized sculpture on social media, and several commenters called for video camera monitoring of the space.
At Monday afternoon’s Tantramar council meeting, and before the matter was reported to police, councillor Mike Tower took the opportunity to ask Sergeant Hanson about the effectiveness of surveillance cameras against vandalism.
“They’re an effective deterrent,” said Hanson. “And in the event that someone does vandalize and it’s captured on camera, hopefully we can try to use that to help identify the person. My experience has been that that can be very valuable.”
CAO Jennifer Borne says that staff are reaching out to vendors to obtain quotes on the repairs needed for the sculpture.
“It’s terrible that it happened,” said Tower on Monday. “I would dearly love to find out who it was and make sure we can make them pay for it. You know, it’s just a very unfortunate thing is to see happening in our community.”
