Blue Whale vandalized

It was discovered Saturday morning that the Blue Whale of Catoosa, Okla., was vandalized in recent days.

According to KOTV in Tulsa:

Vandals wrote what is believed to be their names on the cultural icon, which was built in 1972, and Catoosa police are investigating. Police are not releasing photos of the graffiti because they feel it will hinder the investigation.

It is unknown when the act occurred, but a member of the Catoosa Arts and Tourism Society/Fins of the Blue Whale took to Twitter Saturday afternoon to address the situation.

“I’m kinda sad….some vandals have defaced my new paint job. I don’t know why people feel the need to do that, I’m just so disappointed.”

According to another report by KTUL-TV in Tulsa, the Route 66 landmark had 15 areas of graffiti.

I happened to be at the Blue Whale that morning to help volunteers remove Christmas lights from it and the nearby Ark. A few observations:

• As indicated in the KOTV report, the vandals very likely implicated themselves with their own graffiti. Within an hour, locals already had a pretty good idea who at least two of them were.
• Members of Catoosa Arts and Tourism Society/Fins of the Blue Whale initially didn’t want to publicize the vandalism, but had a change of heart by afternoon.
• It probably would be overstating it to say the vandalism “defaced” the Blue Whale. The graffiti was done with what appears to be a Sharpie marker over small areas. The graffiti isn’t apparent until you get close to the whale.
• I’ve visited the Blue Whale site dozens of times over the years, and this was the first incident of vandalism I can recall to the whale since it was restored in the late 1990s. The Blue Whale is such an icon, the perpetrators will become pariahs in their community if they’re caught.
• Even before the graffiti, the Blue Whale was scheduled to get another coat of paint within a few weeks by the Bill Haynes Co., which made some much-needed initial repairs to the landmark last summer.