SQUAMISH, British Columbia (AP) \u2014 Authorities in British Columbia urged people to stay away from a rock face above a highway in the Canadian province where a red Volkswagen Beetle shell was suspended in an apparent prank by engineering students.<\/p>\n
BC Parks was working to remove the Beetle and expects to do so within the week, the province\u2019s Environment Ministry said in a statement Monday. It said the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and park rangers have been asked to investigate.<\/p>\n
The car shell appeared on the rock face above Highway 99 in Squamish, British Columbia, last week with a large \u201cE\u201d on its roof, indicating University of British Columbia engineering students were carrying on a tradition of placing Beetle shells in difficult locations.<\/p>\n
In 2009, a Beetle fell from the Iron Workers Memorial Bridge, and Vancouver police arrested five students in a failed attempt to suspend it from the span.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the university did not immediately return a message seeking comment. <\/p>\n
Squamish Mayor Armand Hurford said the area around the Stawamus Chief rock formation is a \u201csacred place\u201d with deep cultural meaning to the Squamish Nation.<\/p>\n
He said the area is also popular among hikers and climbers and what \u201cmay have felt like an innocent prank\u201d has affected the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an area that deserves respect, and that wasn\u2019t the case here,\u201d Hurford said in the statement. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SQUAMISH, British Columbia (AP) \u2014 Authorities in British Columbia urged people to stay away from a rock face…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[251216,2430,28,1685,793,2026,2031,111,965],"class_list":{"0":"post-569264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-armand-hurford","9":"tag-british-columbia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-climate-and-environment","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-international-news","14":"tag-oddities","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}