Wisconsin not ready to return Navy badger statue

MADISON, Wis. — The Wisconsin badger statue that has served as a literal touchstone for so many Capitol building visitors that they’ve rubbed the finish off his nose could be headed to another den soon.

Navy officials want the statue they loaned to the state more than 30 years ago back. But state historians aren’t letting it go without a fight.

The badger is synonymous with Wisconsin. It was selected as the state’s official animal because lead miners in the state’s early days were said to burrow into the ground like badgers. The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s athletic teams are known as the Badgers, the school’s mascot is a sassy badger named Bucky and an image of a badger adorns the state flag.

Replicas of badgers can be found throughout the state Capitol. But the Badger and Shield statue holds a special place of honor outside the governor’s office.

The statue was crafted around 1899 from melteddown cannons taken from Cuba during the SpanishAmerican War, according to online travel guide Atlas Obscura. It was affixed to the USS Wisconsin battleship before World War I.

It spent more than 60 years in a U.S. Naval Academy garden before the academy museum loaned it to Wisconsin in 1988 for a state historical society exhibition that coincided with the recommissioning of the second USS Wisconsin, which was built in Philadelphia. After the exhibition ended, the statue was put outside the governor’s Capitol office in 1989. It has stood there ever since.

The building has been closed to the public for nearly a year because of the coronavirus pandemic, but the statue has been a highlight of tours in recent years, with throngs of adults and children rubbing its nose for good luck.

State Department of Administration officials said the naval academy’s museum contacted them last March about returning the statue so it could be displayed at the Nauticus Museum in Norfolk, Virginia, where the second USS Wisconsin is now an exhibit. The Nauticus Museum is run by a nonprofit, not the Navy. Messages left at the museum weren’t returned.

The naval academy museum extended the loan through mid-September due to COVID-19-related closures.

AP PHOTO/TODD RICHMOND A Badger and Shield statue is seen outside the governor’s Capitol office in Madison, Wis., on Wednesday. On loan for more than 30 years, the U.S. Naval Academy wants the statue back to include it in an exhibit featuring the USS Wisconsin battleship in Norfolk, Va.