{"id":54813,"date":"2025-08-09T11:09:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T11:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/54813\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T11:09:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T11:09:09","slug":"heartbreak-as-walsall-woodland-badger-sculpture-damaged-by-senseless-vandals-one-month-after-installation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/54813\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Heartbreak&#8217; as Walsall woodland badger sculpture damaged by &#8216;senseless&#8217; vandals one month after installation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A wooden sculpture of a badger in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.expressandstar.com\/news\/local-hubs\/walsall\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Walsall<\/a> has been damaged in what the borough council called a &#8220;senseless&#8221; act of vandalism.<\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;beloved&#8221; badger sculpture was only installed on July 10 at the entrance to the new Reedswood Woodland Walk in Birchills.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/go.walsall.gov.uk\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Walsall Council<\/a> said it was part of a wider effort to &#8220;enhance Reedswood Park\u2019s natural beauty and accessibility&#8221;, alongside resurfaced paths, new steps and opening up woodland previously affected by litter and anti-social behaviour.<\/p>\n<p>A photograph of the sculpture, shared today (August 8) shows the sculpture with its snout broken off. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/724d4a37-da9c-4c25-b7cc-5d11e5230770.jpg\"   alt=\"The wooden sculpture of a badger in Walsall has been damaged after what the local council said was a &quot;senseless&quot; act of vandalism. Photo: Walsall Council\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"w-full max-w-none\"\/>The wooden sculpture of a badger in Walsall has been damaged after what the local council said was a &#8220;senseless&#8221; act of vandalism. Photo: Walsall Council<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for the local authority said: &#8220;We&#8217;re heartbroken to share that the nose of our beloved badger sculpture &#8211; installed just last month at the entrance to the new Reedswood Woodland Walk &#8211; has been broken o<a tabindex=\"-1\"\/>ff in an act of vandalism.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This senseless act undermines the hard work and community spirit that went into improving the park for everyone.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Reacting to the news on social media, dozens of members of the community expressed sadness &#8211; if not surprise.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/5f393170-54e6-475b-9d1e-31e3006c5e7b.jpg\"   alt=\"The wooden sculpture of a badger in Walsall has been damaged after what the local council said was a &quot;senseless&quot; act of vandalism. Photo: Walsall Council\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"w-full max-w-none\"\/>The badger sculpture was installed in July as part of efforts to imporve Reedswood Park in Walsall. Photo: Walsall Council<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Absolutely gutting, my little one has his picture taken with it every time he goes to the park,&#8221; wrote one mother on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/OurWalsall\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Someone else added: &#8220;Lovely to see it the other day, unfortunately my first thought was how long is it going to last? This is Walsall.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>One commenter wrote: &#8220;Sadly, it was inevitable given society these days, we can&#8217;t just have nice things to admire any more.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You have been instrumental in improving the park with investment. Sadly, the minority spoil it for the majority. We keep moving forward,&#8221; wrote another.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A wooden sculpture of a badger in Walsall has been damaged in what the borough council called a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,924,1120,96,2652,50,56,54,55,2656,30022],"class_list":{"0":"post-54813","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-crime","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-local-hubs","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-unitedkingdom","19":"tag-walsall","20":"tag-walsall-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}