Vandals dyed one of Penn’s hidden gems, its BioPond, red last weekend
Surrounding rocks still had red paint, or dye, on them Wednesday morning as ducks bobbed by. It was unclear what was added to the pond.
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The University of Pennsylvania’s BioPond, a hidden oasis on the urban campus behind the school’s quad, was dyed red over the weekend.
“It appears there was vandalism at the BioPond, and Penn is investigating,” Penn spokesperson Ron Ozio said in an email to The Inquirer.
Details were few as of Wednesday morning, though the pond remained a reddish hue. The area is a shaded campus refuge where students and faculty eat lunch, walk, or think.
The vandalism was first reported by the Daily Pennsylvanian, the school’s student-run newspaper. The newspaper found the item listed among the campus crime and fire log, which noted a vandalism and criminal mischief incident reported at 2:47 p.m. Saturday at the BioPond off Guardian Drive. The log is published by the school’s Division of Public Safety.
No motive was listed, nor was it clear whether a dye or some other substance was added to the pond. Rocks surrounding the pond still had red paint, or dye, on them Wednesday morning as ducks bobbed by.
“Environmental Health & Radiation Safety also responded to examine the BioPond for the safety and well-being of both people and the vibrant animal and plant biodiversity,” vice president of public safety Kathleen Shields Anderson told the Daily Pennsylvanian.
Kathryn Butler, the greenhouse and garden manager at James G. Kaskey Memorial Park, where the BioPond is located, told The Inquirer she could not comment but confirmed the pond had been turned red.
Butler wrote a history of the site for the Penn Museum, noting that James G. Kaskey Memorial Park is a small garden on the southwest end of campus set aside in 1894 as a botanical garden for the department of biology. The original, but informal, name for the park was BioPond. The area was originally five acres with a secondary lotus pond but has been cut down to 3.5 acres because of building on campus. The lotus pond is also gone.
An article by Hidden City Philadelphia reported that there was a “heated clash” surrounding the BioPond in the 1990s, when students, faculty, and staff protested the school’s plan to reduce the park’s size for new campus buildings.