{"id":803965,"date":"2026-07-15T18:11:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T18:11:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/803965\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T18:11:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T18:11:19","slug":"the-curious-case-of-the-absent-ostrich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/803965\/","title":{"rendered":"The curious case of the absent ostrich"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>People enjoying a stroll the Bill Thorpe Walking Bridge found a new friend awaiting them recently &#8211; a seven-foot metal bird named Bertha &#8211; but she\u2019s already gone, having fallen victim to vandalism.<\/p>\n<p>Bertha, a colourful metal sculpture of an ostrich crafted by artist Jean Hudson, was recently installed on the walking bridge as part of the City of Fredericton\u2019s temporary art program, but her time there proved to be short lived, as she was recently removed.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!fMiB!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F09daa309-349a-4e16-9afb-5dc68059791a_1600x900.jpeg\" data-component-name=\"Image2ToDOM\" class=\"image-link image2 is-viewable-img can-restack\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/09daa309-349a-4e16-9afb-5dc68059791a_1600.jpeg\" width=\"1456\" height=\"819\" data-attrs=\"{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/09daa309-349a-4e16-9afb-5dc68059791a_1600x900.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:819,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:164299,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image\/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/ftonindependent.substack.com\/i\/207184071?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F09daa309-349a-4e16-9afb-5dc68059791a_1600x900.jpeg&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}\" alt=\"\"   fetchpriority=\"high\" class=\"sizing-normal\"\/><\/a>Bertha, a seven-foot ostrich sculpture crafted from recovered metal, was damaged by a vandal or vandals last week, but it\u2019s expected to return to the Bill Thorpe Walking Bridge after some repairs this week. (Photo: Submitted\/City of Fredericton)  <\/p>\n<p>City spokesperson Marley McLellan told the Fredericton Independent this week that the removal was to effect repairs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People enjoying a stroll the Bill Thorpe Walking Bridge found a new friend awaiting them recently &#8211; a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":803966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,66],"class_list":["post-803965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}