Crow statue being removed from Chatham park

A 13-foot-tall crow won’t likely be in Zonta Park for much longer.

The wooden crow sculpture was unveiled in the downtown Chatham park last October with the name "Russell Crow."

It's now slated to come down after members of the local Black community drew attention to racial connotations.

Chatham-Kent's manager of communications Eric Labadie tells CTV News that was never the intention with the public art installation.

He said the statue no longer represents all community members after hearing the public feedback, noting the crow statue will be returned to its artist.

"We want it to be something that the community is proud of," Labadie said. "We want it to be something that the community feels represented by and we heard from members of the community that this statue doesn't represent how they feel about Chatham-Kent. It doesn't represent what they think Chatham-Kent is. We heard some negativity surrounding it. So, ultimately, we're listening to the community feedback, and the decision has been made to take it down."

Labadie explained, "The Black community at large, there was some representation that came forward and said, ‘Hey, we don't think this is something that represents us. This doesn't make us feel proud of downtown Chatham-Kent.’ So, that's something that as the municipality we're listening to and that ultimately, the decision was made, and we had to take this thing down."

Labadie said more collaboration will take place ahead of any future art installations in Chatham-Kent, "When we're going out and creating these pieces and having them commissioned that we're bouncing them off these community groups to make sure that these art pieces are something that everybody's proud of and makes people feel like Chatham-Kent is everybody's home."

The crow statue came at no cost to tax payers thanks to a grant from a Hydro One, however those funds cannot be reallocated.