"It's really a sad event," said Geary Schindel, chief technical officer for the Edwards Aquifer Authority and an avid caver. "It's probably the best-known cave formation in the United States, if not the world. In my opinion, it's equivalent to destroying a priceless work of art like the Mona Lisa or a Picasso."
Someone in a group of 11 people on a tour Nov. 21 apparently hung back momentarily and snapped off the upper right wing of the butterfly and made off with it, cave co-owner Gerry Ingham said.
The damage was discovered about a half-hour later during the next tour, but the previous tour members already had left the property.
They apparently had some identifying information that narrowed down the possible suspects, but for some reason the police are dithering. Of course they're dithering, it's only a chunk of rock, right? Why all the fuss? The owners of the caverns are appealing for the piece's return, but I suspect anyone so crass and vile to intentionally destroy an icon like this would be more likely to throw away the evidence in order to feign innocence than, oh, do something crazy like give it back.
Ingham, whose family has owned the property for five generations and opened the cave commercially in 1960, said the damage was not an accident.
"My nephew is 6-foot-3 and he couldn't stand on his tiptoes and reach over the railing and touch this formation with his fingertips," Ingham said.
I'd like to snap this jerk's leg off at the kneecaps, I tell you. Assholes like this make the world a lesser place for the rest of us.
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