Grizzly's escape into the wilds after sheltered life raises alarm

Renata D'Aliesio, CanWest News Service
Published: Friday, June 09, 2006
CALGARY--The longer Boo remains on the lam, the more peril he faces.

The five-year-old grizzly bear escaped from Kicking Horse Mountain Resort near Golden after catching scent of a sow.

Having just reached sexual maturity, Boo tunnelled his way out beneath a nearly three-metre high electric fence sometime Sunday evening or early Monday.

The couple were spotted together from a helicopter on Monday and Tuesday, but not since. Only the sow was seen Wednesday in the Canyon Creek drainage area, just west of the resort. Foggy weather hampered search efforts Thursday.

Grizzly bears don't stay together long after they mate. Their courtship lasts only a few days.

But Boo might not know all the rules. He's lived most of his life in captivity, after his mother was shot by a hunter.

"The female grizzly will go off on her own to raise the cubs and will leave Boo by himself in the wilderness," said Golden police Cpl. Barry Kennedy.

"If Boo doesn't know that he's not supposed to be with her, she might kill him or hurt him."

Boo faces other dangers.

Grizzly bears lead solitary lives and need a lot of room to forage for food.

At the resort, the bear had a 10-hectare wild habitat to himself and food delivered to him daily.

In the wild, he may stumble into another male grizzly's territory and end up in a fight.

Rusty Noble, a director with the Kicking Horse Mountain resort, said an expert in finding and tranquilizing grizzlies is being hired to help with the search for Boo.

At the moment, police and B.C. conservation officials don't believe the bear poses a risk to people because it's deep in the woods. His location, however, also makes it difficult to track him.

"Everybody's kind of hoping something works out for the best, one way or the other," Kennedy said.

The 281-kilogram grizzly does not have a radio collar but Noble said he's easy to distinguish because he's fatter than other bears.

Officials don't want Boo to remain free because eventually, when food becomes tougher to find, he could head to a community.

"Boo is a habituated bear," Kennedy said. "He's quite used to humans and he associates them with food."