Giant sandpiper statue finds permanent perch in New Brunswick village

A supersize statue of a sandpiper has found a permanent roost in a New Brunswick village, but officials are warning the structure comes with a "significant level of risk."

A supersize statue of a sandpiper has found a permanent roost in a New Brunswick village, but officials are warning the structure comes with a “significant level of risk.”

News that Shep, named in honour of Shepody Bay, was home for good travelled fast Tuesday evening through the village of Dorchester, part of the amalgamated municipality of Tantramar, N.B.

“Shep stays,” Kara Becker, Dorchester’s former deputy mayor, said in an interview.

“I feel like I’ve been through a great battle and I’m a warrior who’s recuperating. And I just can’t believe it was all over this little statue.”

The mayor of Tantramar, however, said the statue puts the municipality at an insurance and liability risk. “(The statue) is not our owned property, it sits on municipal land,” Mayor Andrew Black told a council meeting Tuesday night.

“It is something that we have to deal with. So, we assume the insurance and the liability on this piece of property.” He called the liability risk “significant. The council directed its public works department to confirm the statue was safely installed.

Shep was commissioned by Dorchester’s village council about three years ago after the original wooden one began to rot.

The 2.4-metre high and 135-kilogram bird points to the mudflats of the Bay of Fundy, where semipalmated sandpipers spend about three weeks around the end of July, resting and fattening up to almost double their 20-gram body weight before they undertake a journey to South America.