Small bear sculpture at City Park vandalized, eyes gouged out

It turns out someone - or something - has a serious problem with the small bear sculpture at City Park.

Over the past few nights, the bear has had its eyes gouged out, its chest opened up and one of its legs cut off in what looked like an act of vandalism.

Now, it seems the top suspect may be a woodpecker. 

Since the three-bear carving was created by artist Randy Duff in 2016, there have been two incidents of what appeared to be vandalism, says City Parks Services manager Blair Stewart.

"It actually turns out it's more than likely natural. It's decay within the actual sculpture itself and it looks like probably birds are actually the vandals, where they're digging away at the rotted material underneath. You can see there really is no evidence of a person doing anything."

The City has had initial discussions with Duff to decide what next steps to take.

Stewart says it is important for them to preserve as much as possible, despite the rot. 

"It's a beautiful art piece that was created out of ad hoc," says Stewart.

"We either remove the stump entirely or have something beautiful created and it worked out for us, but we've only gotten four or five years out of it and it would be nice to get a little longer so we'll try to make the repairs and see how long we can make it last."