posted on June 28, 2006 08:44:30 AM new
No, not you Bear.
Boo the grizzly bear busts out again
Jun. 27, 2006. 03:15 PM
CANADIAN PRESS
GOLDEN, B.C. — Boo the bear has a taste for freedom that apparently wasn't satisfied the first time he broke out of his man-made den at a 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.
Sometime on the weekend, the bear smashed his way through a massive locked door and three fences at Kicking Horse Mountain Resort near Golden, the Calgary Herald reported Tuesday.
"Boo is out again. It's unbelievable," said Michael Dalzell, spokesman for Kicking Horse. "We thought there was no way. It was absolutely impossible, but he found a way. It was basically like breaking out of Fort Knox."
This time, Boo outdid himself — putting to shame his first bid for freedom when he dug under a fence and into the paws of a sow.
This time, he smashed his way through a 180-kilogram steel door, barrelled through two electric fences and then scrambled over a 3.6-metre fence reinforced with 60 centimetres of steel below ground.
Behind him, a trail of destruction, evidence of his determination and desire to decamp. He knocked the door off its four bolts and destroyed an electrical box as he forced his way through the two electric fences.
"I think he just kept charging it (the door) and charging it until it broke off its bolts," said Dalzell. "Everything was completely trashed. We are dealing with a pretty smart and determined bear."
The bear has not been seen since his latest escape.
The search team that finally caught up with Boo last Friday went back to work Sunday morning after his departure was discovered, but saw no sign of the grizzly. After logging more than 50 hours the first time searching for Boo from a circling helicopter, searchers will return to the skies to look for him again.
Dalzell said the priority now is to find Boo, track his movements and then consider whether to recapture the bruin.
The resort had planned to neuter Boo, but he escaped before that could happen. His future is now up in the air.
"Right now we are in the process of looking for him . . . we are not out to try to trap or tranquillize him," said Dalzell. "We are looking at all options. Obviously, we need to just really look at our program and figure this one out."
The resort never considered leaving Boo to his own devices during his first taste of freedom. The bear has lived inside a nine-hectare enclosure since his mother was illegally shot by a hunter in 2002.
It's unclear if he could fend for himself and, being used to humans, Boo would likely be a problem bear in the wild.
Tracey Henderson of the Grizzly Bear Alliance in Canmore, Alta., described Boo's circumstance as a "lose-lose situation."
"The poor guy has now tasted freedom and he is going to be more motivated to keep getting out," she said.
"There is a side of me that's saying, `Way to go Boo,' but there is another side of me that's really worried about this bear being in the wild near humans."
While Boo's first escape was blamed on hormones — June is prime mating season for grizzlies — he may not have been enticed into the wilds by the opposite sex this time.
Henderson suggested he may just have been tired of being behind a fence once he realized there is life beyond his enclosure.
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I think it would be cruel to neuter him. While I realize he's a danger to the public and may not be able to fend for himself I don't want to see him confined the rest of his life either.
posted on June 28, 2006 10:45:35 AM new
They need to track him down and shoot him with a tranquiliser dart and then put a radio collar on him to track his movements and then transport him to a remote wilderness area, away from humans.
posted on June 28, 2006 04:27:26 PM new
pii what happens when he decides he wants some human contact? He needs to be captured and nuetured and recaged. It also maybe hard for this bear to now make it in the wild.
posted on July 5, 2006 07:40:31 AM new
Wildlife conservationists have located Boo but haven't returned him to the resort until they come up with a plan of what to do with him.
Another bear story in the news:
Tahoe bear swills booze with pizza snack
STATELINE, Nev. - A bear cub drew a crowd of spectators at a Lake Tahoe neighborhood as it munched on barbecue-chicken-and-jalapeno pizza in the back seat of a vintage red Buick convertible.
It also apparently washed it down with a swig of a Jack Daniel's mixer, an Absolut vodka and tonic, and a beer taken from a cooler, the vehicle's owner said.
About 30 people watched the cub lumber around a parking lot in upper Kingbury Grade on Sunday before it homed in on the Buick and the spicy pizza on the floor.
The bruin was unfazed by the car's horn the blew nonstop as the cub pressed the seat into the steering wheel.
"The bear was loping along in the parking lot and then decides to get inside the car," said resident Jerry Patterson.
"People were screaming at him, the horn was going off, but he was completely unaware. He did what he wanted to do and the people didn't matter."
The bear remained inside the 1964 Buick Skylark for about 20 minutes and at times put his paws on the dash as if he were holding on for a ride, Patterson said.
The owner of the car, David Ziello of South Lake Tahoe, said the bruin didn't cause any damage, but slopped cheese and jalapenos on the seats and floor.
Carl Lackey, a biologist with the Nevada Department of Wildlife, said up to two dozen bears live in the Kingsbury region near the south shore of Lake Tahoe.
The residential area sees more of them because the bears have found a primary source from Dumpsters and people who leave their food and trash in the open, said Lackey, who tracks and relocates bears on the Nevada side of the Tahoe basin.
Lackey warned visitors and residents against keeping food inside their vehicles.
"When you are in bear habitat, regardless of the time of year, you cannot leave any kind of food out — whether it's food inside the car, trash inside or outside your car, or pet food," Lackey said.
"Bears will find it and in doing so, it is increasing your chances of serious conflict."
Information from: Tahoe Daily Tribune, http://tahoe.com/tribune
