The public artwork has been attacked at least three times in the past 12 months with his right antenna sustaining the most damage and his shell covered with graffiti.

The most recent incident has been the worst with the right eye broken and bent on a 90 degree angle.

Morty's eye has since been straightened up but he still needs a bit of tender, love and care.

"Someone has actually bent the antenna right over and that's extraordinary. It's so hard to do, you'd need a tool as you can't do it by hand," Morty's creator and local artist, Neil Dickinson said.

"It's just that one person who will keep coming back and having a go at it...we're not going to give in. We're going to keep plugging away."

Cultural development officer Georgina Perri said Morty seemed to be unfairly targeted as many of the town's other public artworks were left untouched.

She said the cost to fix him is quite minimal as they were mostly patch up jobs.

"We think it has a lot to do with the location of Morty. People go there, have their fast food and just act a bit silly at nighttime," she said.

"It's very disappointing and heartbreaking for the artist and for the community, people have a real ownership of it.

"Neil checks on Morty on a week to week basis, he has a real connection to the sculpture whereas other artists just plonk it somewhere and leave it."

Morty, whose name is derived from his location at Ray Morton Park, is made from a steel frame with ferro cement on the top.

Mr Dickinson said the position of Morty's right eye makes him a favourable target for vandals and he may have to alter the snail's body to ward off attacks.

"If [the vandalism] keeps happening, we'll have to cut the antenna off. The right one has been an issue because of the way it's positioned, they can swing on it," Mr Dickinson said.

"I've put so much steel in there that I'm so surprised it's had the damaged that it's had. I've done similar sculptures and I haven't had this sort of issue before."

Mr Dickinson was commissioned to create the public artwork for the town's 175th birthday celebrations in 2013. He said everytime Morty was vandalised, it felt like a personal attack on him.

"It's quite sad. It'd be like somebody jumping on your car in the middle of the night. Just stamping on it and trying to bend everything on it, it's just blatant vandalism," he said.

"I think so many people, kids especially, get enjoyment out of it. It's really disappointing and I just want to make the public aware and the person doing it of the effect."

Mr Dickinson has created at least 20 public artworks in his career and said vandalism is unfortunately part and parcel of it.

Two of his artworks have been stolen while others have been damaged and had to be removed from public.

However, the artist said the latest attack hasn't deterred him and he has commenced work on a new commission for Queanbeyan City Council.

He is creating the platypus frame for a community art project to be held during the Queanbeyan River Festival.

The platypus will be about two metres long and modelled in clay and cast in concrete. The community will be invited to add the finish touches - a mosaic design - to the platypus's body in October.

The completed work will be installed on the Queanbeyan River bank, close by to Morty.

"I've made a model of it and it won't be as big as Morty but it will be quite large," he said.

"A platypus is easier as it has no extremities, no bits sticking out. I'm going to make it so robust, you wouldn't believe it."