“Someone stomped the ears off the little guy,” said Moe Fahey, the project lead behind the gazebo, which was unveiled last summer.
“There’s no way they fell off. Somebody knocked them off,” said Fahey.
Fortunately, the artisanal carver from Cochrane who donated a lot of time and effort to create the bears, Brian Widhal, was in Sundre delivering a finished project to a local business when the damage was discovered, she said.
“He’ll drill and dowel the ears back into place,” she said, glad that at least both of the ears were still at the site and recovered.
While parents and visitors at the park are certainly welcome and even encouraged to pose with and take photos of the bears, Fahey is asking people not to allow children to climb on the carvings.
Sue Nelson, the municipality’s community services manager, said one of her staff discovered the broken ears and brought them in.
“I’m not too sure exactly how it happened,” said Nelson.
While she has in the past seen children climbing all over the bears, the last such instance she recalls was in the fall.
So although she did not want to speculate as to how the ears were broken off, Nelson nevertheless agreed that children should not be climbing on the bears — not just to protect the carvings, but also the kids, who could potentially fall and wind up hurting themselves.
“Please stay off of them,” she said.
