An outcry erupts as a whale mural beloved by many in Dallas is replaced with art for the World Cup

DALLAS– As Dallas pulls out all the stops for the World Cup this summer, one transformation causes uproar: the sudden disappearance of a giant, beloved downtown mural of swimming whales.

“I see this mural almost every day on the way to school and then one day they were painting it,” Katy Rose Cusick said. “And it was incredibly shocking to me that this could happen so quickly.”

Work has been underway this month to paint the mural that has adorned two entire walls of a car park for almost 30 years to make way for artwork linked to upcoming World Cup matches. Wyland, the artist who created the mural, said in a statement that its destruction left him “deeply discouraged.”

“When a work that has carried meaning for generations can be erased without dialogue, it raises serious questions about how we value public art, the artists and the communities for whom these works were created,” Wyland said.

Cusick and Joshua Hurston, high school seniors at a local performing and visual arts high school, started a Change.org petition hoping to raise awareness about protecting history and art. The petition has so far garnered hundreds of signatures, including from people with fond memories of seeing the mural as children.

“If we couldn’t necessarily save the mural, we would have to make sure that something like this doesn’t happen again,” he said.

A spokesperson for the region’s World Cup organizing committee said in a statement that it looked forward to “unveiling new work that captures this current historic moment and reflects the energy, unity and global spirit surrounding the 2026 World Cup,” adding that “a portion” of Wyland’s mural will be preserved “as a tribute to his lasting impact on the city.”

Dallas will host more World Cup matches than any other venue at the event co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, with nine matches scheduled at the AT.&T Stadium in suburban Arlington, home of the Dallas Cowboys. The retractable roof venue will be called Dallas Stadium for the World Cup.

Downtown Dallas Inc. said in a statement that it was part of the initial discussions about the mural and confirmed that it was not part of the city’s public art collection before presenting the World Cup organizing committee to the building’s owners. A spokesperson for the building’s owners, Slate Asset Management, said they were approached by Downtown Dallas Inc. and the organizing committee earlier this year about donating the wall for a new public art installation by a local artist.

The mural, titled “Whaling Wall 82,” was unveiled in 1999. Wyland has painted more than 100 similar murals known as Whaling Walls around the world as part of his mission to conserve ocean life.

“It was more than paint on a wall: it was part of my job, alongside the Wyland Foundation, to bring people together to protect our oceans and clean water,” he said.