Oops! Boo has done it again.
The determined young male grizzly busted loose from captivity for a second time early Sunday morning, less than 48 hours after being nabbed and brought back to a Rocky Mountain wildlife refuge after 19 days on the lam.
It was no ordinary escape.
The 280-kilogram grizzly crashed through a thick steel door, breached two electrified fences he had somehow deactivated, then scaled a final, four-metre-high barrier to reach the wide outdoors.
“He did the impossible,” marvelled Michael Dalzell, spokesman for the Kicking Horse Mountain Resort, which had been containing the powerful bear in its wildlife refuge.
Mr. Dalzell likened Boo’s frantic flight to breaking out of Fort Knox.
“He demolished a 400-pound metal door and scaled a 12-foot [four-metre] fence. I have no idea how. That’s one video I would love to see.”
So the Golden area resort has sent out searchers and a helicopter once again to scour the alpine wilderness for Boo, the bear who yearns to be wild.
Now that Boo has twice taken the freedom road, Mr. Dalzell said the resort has not decided what to do once the 4½ -year-old grizzly has been visually hunted down.
“We will be meeting with conservation officers to discuss the future. At the moment, our focus is just to find him and take it from there.”
Boo’s escapades have become the prime topic of conversation in the coffee shops of Golden, about 20 kilometres away.
“That, and the weather, is all anyone talks about,” mayor Jimmy Doyle said. “Boo’s been back. Now he’s gone again.
“He wanted out. That taste of freedom we all enjoy seems to have got under his skin.”
Boo has been kept in captivity since he was orphaned as a cub, along with his sibling Cari, when their mother was shot by a hunter.
For the past two years, home has been the mountain resort’s self-styled “largest enclosed protected grizzly bear habitat in the world.”
Cari died during hibernation in the winter of 2004. Earlier this month, the lonely Boo escaped by tunnelling under the enclosure’s solid fence.
It was lust at first sight, with Boo immediately taking up with a passing female grizzly he appeared to have whiffed.
But wildlife experts believe Boo is at danger in the wilderness because he has not learned basic survival skills.
At the same time, his familiarity with humans could also put them at risk.
The resort spent 19 days tracking Boo, before searchers were eventually able to lace him with tranquillizers last Friday and transport the muscular bear back to his old residence.
Boo was placed in the refuge’s “winter denning area,” behind the big steel door and the electric fences. To prevent him from digging his way out, the refuge has more than a metre of steel below the fence line, Mr. Dalzell said. “It’s a safe zone for the bear. It’s impenetrable.”
But no one told Boo.
“Saturday night, everything seemed fine. He was very calm, no sign of stress,” Mr. Dalzell said. “Sunday morning, we came back to a trashed denning area and no bear.”
Tracey Henderson of Alberta’s Grizzly Bear Alliance said she is torn over Boo’s fate.
“One part of me says ‘good for you, Boo.’ The other side of me is very worried,” Ms. Henderson said.
“He seems more motivated than ever to be in the wild, but Boo is so used to the presence of humans. A confrontation would just be a matter of time, which could end up disastrously for both. It’s a lose-lose situation.”
In Golden, Mr. Doyle said the community is also split on whether Boo should be brought back or left alone to run free.
“I would need to be convinced that he can be out there [in the wild], but there seems to be some inner instinct in animals that they don’t have to learn,” the mayor said.
“I know we have a cat we raised from a kitten and he’s always bringing dead birds and mice into the house.”
One thing is for sure, Mr. Doyle emphasized, there are no fears in Golden about a rampaging Boo on the loose.
“This is bear country. We’re used to bears. Why, I just saw a couple of small black bears while my wife and I were out for a walk.”
But Boo is a grizzly, it was pointed out to the mayor.
“True, this is not some pussy cat. Grizzlies, they’re the boss. But we’re not worried. I know we came here 38 years ago, and we knew this wasn’t downtown Vancouver.”
Source: ROD MICKLEBURGH – The Globe & Mail