Thieves target west-end neighbourhood’s metal deer statues

A string of stolen statues in an Edmonton community has residents worried about other public artwork. CTV News Edmonton's Gates Guarin has the story.

A string of stolen statues in a west-end neighbourhood has residents there concerned about its public artwork.

Thieves have made off with five metal statues of deer over the last year and a half from parks in Glastonbury.

The most recent heist came Sept. 20 in Guinevere Park, when surveillance footage from that morning shows two people loading a statue into a red pickup truck, taking just minutes to pull it off.

Footage from the same camera captured another theft in March.

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Gary Boehm, the president of the Parkland Neighbourhood Residents’ Association, says his neighbours enjoy the public artwork that’s been gracing Glastonbury for 25 years.

“You always see kids around hugging them, having pictures taken on them,” Boehm told CTV News Edmonton on Thursday. “They’re very much part of the community, very much part of the social community.”

And Guinevere Park isn’t the only green space in the community that’s had its deer statues stolen.

Thieves have also taken a deer statue from nearby Parc Le Cerf, which translates to Deer Park.

The residents’ association says the statues are anchored by steel rods, meaning the thieves made a lot of effort to remove them.

“In some cases, they knocked the statues over,” Boehm said. “They actually cut the legs off to take them, we assume, for scrap metal.”

Boehm says the residents’ association decided to remove remaining statues to keep them safe over the winter. Members plan to reconsider visibility and future locations of the statues before they are put back into the parks.

Edmonton police said they are aware of the thefts at Guinevere Park and encourage anyone with information to contact them.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Gates Guarin