Young grizzly Boo returns to refuge again
Last Updated: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 | 3:28 PM MT
CBC News
Boo, the young grizzly bear who has escaped twice from a mountain resort near Golden in southeastern B.C., is once again in custody.
Kicking Horse Mountain Resort spokesman Michael Dalzell says the four-year-old male bear returned on the weekend and walked back into his enclosure voluntarily when staff opened the gate for him.
Boo had escaped on June 25, breaking down a large steel door and clearing a series of fences.
Boo the grizzly bear is shown in this undated handout photo. Boo has a taste for freedom that apparently wasn't satisfied the first time he broke out of his man-made den at a Golden, B.C., resort in search of a girlfriend. Just a day after his first, two-week romp in the wild ended with a tranquillizer dart and a helicopter ride, the grizzly pulled an even greater escape.
(CP PHOTO/HO/Kicking Horse Mountain Resort)
That escape came just the day after he had returned from 19 days in the wild following a previous breakout.
On both occasions he was seen in the wild with female grizzly bears.
Dalzell says he hopes Boo will stay put, now that the four-week grizzly mating season is over, at least until next spring.
He says the bear appears to have lost weight, and probably returned because there's food and it's safe.
Last week, B.C. Environment Minister Barry Penner suggested that the bear be turned loose wearing a GPS collar, so that the public could keep track of him.
Dalzell says that's still under discussion with the ministry, and the collar is on order. He also says there's been no decision on the possibility of surgery to neuter the young male.
The bear was orphaned in northern B.C. in 2002 when a hunter shot his mother. The hunter was fined $9,000.
