"We could not of asked for anything else. It was a great result."
He said when police arrived, two men were spoken to, and what remained of the sculpture was recovered.
Artist Bing Dawe said he was first told the sculpture was stolen on Monday morning.
"I was pretty upset for the sheer inconvenience of it, but also for the future of sculpture in the gardens and public sculpture in general."
He said people would be less likely to commission pieces in future if there was a chance they would be stolen.
The sculpture, which took him around six months to complete, would be returned to him to look over for repairs, he said.
Unfortunately its tail was detached and the fins were missing. The tail had been recovered alongside the sculpture.
"I will ascertain whether it's worth repairing or if I should melt it down and do a re-cast of it."
Rex McCamish from scrap metal yard McCamish Metals in Penrose said the scrap price for bronze is around $4 a kilogram, which means if successful, the thieves would have got away with just $360.
The sculpture was a popular feature of the 2013/14 Sculpture in the Gardens exhibition and was later purchased for the Gardens' permanent collection by the Friends of the Auckland Botanic Gardens.
Auckland Botanic Gardens manager Jack Hobbs said staff were pleased to have the missing sculpture recovered, and they would look at putting security in place to make sure this didn't happen again.
"We're going to look at location, how it's attached so it can't just be removed by a hacksaw, and we're also looking at having some CCTV coverage."
Two men appeared in Papakura District Court today, both charged with theft, and were remanded on bail until their next court appearance.
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