‘Parks are not the canvas for street art.’ Graffiti found at national park, photos show

A large graffiti mural was painted in a popular Utah national park and rangers are looking for the artist.

Park officials at Bryce Canyon National Park found the graffiti on the side of a concrete retaining wall, photos show. They believe it was created over Valentine’s Day weekend.

“Graffiti is vandalism, and is often extremely difficult to remove,” the National Park Service’s Investigative Services Branch said Thursday on Facebook. “Repair of vandalized sites, if possible, is costly and time consuming — and may not restore the site to its former condition.”

The graffititakes up most of the retaining wall, photos show. It includes an image of a face and several graffiti letters.

Many people were outraged by the graffiti and said it damages the scenery of Bryce Canyon. They feared that the graffiti would start on concrete but shortly end up throughout the park.

“National parks are NOT the canvas for street art,” one commenter said.

Other people thought the art added to the landscape since the man-made retaining wall already takes away from the natural view.

“It’s a concrete wall. That is not nature,” another commenter said. “By definition, the human made structure could be considered vandalism in itself, depending on your point of view.”

Graffiti within the national parks is still considered vandalism, and it is illegal, the Investigative Services Branch said.

“Defacing any part of the national park or other public land you visit hurts, and it degrades the experience of other visitors,” the Investigative Service Branch said. “Disturbing wildlife or damaging their habitats can directly lead to their demise.”

Other national parks have seen an increase in vandalism during the coronavirus pandemic, McClatchy News reported.

Nearby Zion National Park in Utah has seen blue spray paint and muddy handprints splattered on sandstone walls, names carved into logs and alcoves, and canyon walls scraped up, park officials said in December.

“No one comes to the park expecting to see graffiti but nearly every day, staff find words and shapes carved, drawn, painted (with mud, dirt, pigment, paint), or scratched on rocks and more recently even carved within moss,” park officials said.

Camp Rock at City of Rocks National Reserve in Idaho also saw “the worst case of vandalism in the park’s history,” according to the Idaho Statesman. Other parks have seen excessive traffic and crowds, as well as litter, scattered throughout the parks.