Graffiti artist accused of scaling Australian bridge tower and painting giant cartoon bird

SYDNEY - Australian police arrested a man on Tuesday after he allegedly scaled a 140-metre-high (460-foot) tower of a cantilever bridge in the city of Melbourne and painted a giant cartoon bird on it.

An Instagram account posting footage from Bolte Bridge, not far from the city's central business district, showed a man dangling his legs from the top of the tower.

In subsequent posts, he demanded lower taxes in Australia and requested a peanut butter sandwich be delivered by drone before he would come down.

The demand caused a stand-off with police, which in turn closed a lane on the bridge, disrupting commuter traffic.

Paul Hogan, an acting sergeant with Victoria Police, said a 22-year-old man was arrested after descending from the tower.

"The man allegedly spray-painted an external wall. As the morning played out, the man allegedly refused to follow police direction and come down," he said.

A police statement said that significant resources were deployed to the location, including uniform members, highway patrol officers, a critical incident response team as well as Search & Rescue and Water Police.

The graffiti on the bridge closely resembles Pam the Bird, a symbol that has appeared on dozens of buildings in Melbourne in recent years, including on the heritage-listed Flinders Street railway station.

The police statement made no mention of what eventually persuaded the man to come down. It did not appear to be a peanut butter sandwich, with the Instagram account posting: "The audacity to fly a drone up with here no sandwich."

(Reporting by Alasdair Pal in Sydney; Editing by Michael Perry and Edwina Gibbs)

Copyright Reuters or USA Today Network via Reuters Connect.

This story was originally published July 6, 2026 at 10:50 PM.