THE Canal & River Trust is appealing to people living in Wolverhampton for information after a public art sculpture was vandalised and almost sawn in half.
Part of a series along the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal, the wooden hand-crafted sculpture was created by local artist Robot.
Wolfie, so-called as it depicts a wolf, has been in place for a few months and is one of the first of 50 ‘mile marker’ posts which are planned to mark each mile of the Great Canal Orchard. It is made from timber from a tree that needed to be removed along the canal and is designed to provide a home for bees, beetles and fungi.
The Great Canal Orchard is an ambitious project to create a community orchard which provides free fruit to local people, boaters and visitors to the canals in Wolverhampton, through to Birmingham and out to Worcester.
CRT senior ecologist Paul Wilkinson said: “It’s disappointing to see our public art vandalised in this way. Wolfie is one of the first sculptures we’ve introduced along the canal, and someone has come along and tried to remove the head from the plinth. We don’t know if they wanted to steal the sculpture or if they were trying to destroy it, but either way, we’re upset about this.
“Luckily, the sculpture is repairable, but it is an additional cost we must now cover. The plan is to make the sculpture more secure to prevent anything like this from happening again.”
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