Published May 24, 2010

The graffiti is cleaned up now, but whoever defaced the “Make Way for Ducklings” statuettes could face fines or jail time.

Nancy Schön, who sculpted the ducklings to commemorate Robert McCloskey’s children’s book, has her own punishment in mind for the perpetrator: 100 hours of waxing all the sculptures in the Public Garden.

About 8:30 AM: Mrs. Mallard is one of the statuettes spray painted with the tag "Better Prey." (Rachel L. Blumenthal via Twitter)

A woman named Rachel Blumenthal (@blumie) discovered the tags “BP” and “Better Prey” painted on Mrs. Mallard and her ducklings this morning (“quite a mess”). She snapped and tweeted a photo; outrage ensued.

In a phone interview, Schön described the vandalism as “terrible,” “sick” and “mean.”

Then we sent someone to the Garden to verify the vandalism actually happened. The report back: no vandalism here. I couldn’t believe the Twitter tipster would fabricate this, so I called Mary Hines, spokeswoman for the city’s Park & Rec Department.

Hines said the ducks were, indeed, defaced. (“When I first heard about it, I was horrified.”) The Public Garden work crew discovered the vandalism first thing this morning. “They called for backup,” Hines tells me. The case was elevated to highest priority. The tags were washed clean off.

“The mayor really loves the sculpture,” Schön says. I wouldn’t be surprised if Menino himself expedited the cleanup.

The ducks famously have been stolen (and returned), but never before vandalized, Schön says.

1:42 PM: No vandalism here. (Huw Roberts for WBUR)

“When the last duck was stolen,” she says, “the mayor said this is no longer a prank, this is a crime. And if the person who did this is caught, they’re gonna look at six months in jail or a $25,000 fine.”

I asked Schön why people like to pick on her ducks so much. She doesn’t understand.

On the other hand: “The strange part of it is … there is some very mysterious person or persons who are constantly putting hats on them and scarves decorating them and doing all sorts of things every time there’s any sort of a holiday,” Schön says. (Blumenthal tweeted a picture of the ducks in happier times.)

“When the Red Sox won the pennant, there were immediately Red Sox hats on them.”

Update: Intrigued by a comment from HB, who wondered whether the vandalism was a political statement about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, I called Nancy Schön again for a response.

“Oh, for Heaven’s sakes, that’s possible, I suppose,” she says, fascinated by the idea. But: “There are different ways to make statements and not to deface ducks.”