Boo, the fugitive bear, spotted with furry friend; Lusty grizzly faces castration if his captors are able to contain him long enough
Boo, the freedom-loving grizzly who has twice busted out of his large wilderness compound, may be having fun in the sun as he cavorts in the wild with a new female companion.
But his lust-life looks to be short-lived. Castration is looming for the powerful young male. That is, if his caretakers can hold him long enough to put an end to his romantic rampages.
To make his second great escape, Boo crashed through a 180-kilogram steel door and stormed over a four-metre-high electrified fence that he managed to deactivate.
Early yesterday morning, helicopter searchers spotted him for the first time since his weekend break for freedom. He was in a remote alpine area six kilometres west of the Rocky Mountain wildlife refuge where he had been kept for the past two years.
Boo was not alone.
“He was found with another grizzly bear, presumably a female. Male grizzlies don’t hang out together,” said Mike Dalzell, spokesman for the Kicking Horse Mountain Resort that runs the refuge.
The same thing happened when Boo went AWOL for the first time earlier this month, albeit in a more genteel manner, by digging underneath the compound fence.
He was soon seen in the company of a female grizzly, at least for the first few of the 19 days he was on the lam.
“We were discussing it over coffee today, trying to decide who was at fault,” joked regional environment manager Wayne Stetski.
“The consensus was that a wanton woman lured poor Boo out of the compound, took advantage of him, then dumped him.”
But Mr. Stetski, along with other grizzly experts, knows that the question of what to do with Boo is a serious matter.
Almost certainly, if the decision is made to capture and bring him back alive, the ultrafrisky grizzly will lose his sexual prowess.
“That’s very high on our list of options,” Mr. Stetski said. “He never exhibited interest in getting out before. Then there was a female on the mountain and the interest definitely increased.
“I’ve been surprised by how strong the attraction was. Neutering would certainly cool him down.”
Mr. Stetski said he is also in awe of the “strength and intelligence and determination” shown by the 4½-year-old bear in freeing himself from a secure area in the wildlife refuge thought to be, like Alcatraz, escape-proof.
For the moment, searchers are merely monitoring Boo’s whereabouts. There are no firm plans to capture him because there is not yet a secure place to house the 480-kilogram grizzly.
“Boo certainly can’t go back where he was until the resort comes up with improvements to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Experts agree that Boo’s future should not include the wilderness he yearns to roam. They say he is short on survival skills and is a risk to humans because of his familiarity with them during his long captivity.
“He’s become a problem,” said Ken Macquisten, veterinarian for the two young grizzlies currently kept in a large open-air refuge on North Vancouver’s Grouse Mountain.
“It’s sad. Boo didn’t know how good he had it. Now, he will probably have to be kept in a more traditional, fortress-like enclosure.”
Boo has been kept in various wildlife refuges since he was orphaned as a cub, when his mother was shot — illegally — by a hunter.
Mr. Stetski said Boo’s predicament has prompted a lot of philosophical debate about “what’s right and what’s wrong in dealing with grizzly bears.
“It’s a fascinating situation, but it’s a tough one. The upside for Boo is that he’s become a celebrity. And everyone will be watching us, when we finally decide what to do.”
Source: ROD MICKLEBURGH – Globe and Mail, June 28, 2006