Let Boo go free, say wildlife groups
Captivity a death sentence for wandering bruin
Boo, the wandering grizzly bear, is still on the lam but shouldn't be recaptured. Instead, he should be taken to a remote part of B.C. and allowed to survive on his own, says a consortium of wildlife groups.

Boo, the wandering grizzly bear, is still on the lam but shouldn't be recaptured. Instead, he should be taken to a remote part of B.C. and allowed to survive on his own, says a consortium of wildlife groups.
Photograph by : The Canadian Press

Stuart Hunter, The Province
Published: Monday, July 03, 2006

A consortium of wildlife groups is pressing for the permanent relocation of Boo the fugitive bear so the juvenile grizzly can potentially spend the rest of his life in the wild.

The eight-member consortium says that because four-year-old Boo, which escaped twice from his enclosure at Kicking Horse Mountain Resort near Golden, is too old to be considered for rehabilitation, the bear should be relocated to a remote part of B.C. to give him a chance to show he can survive.

"We've got eight organizations signed up now and we all have membership lists, so we'll probably send out an action alert asking officials to stay the course and [not to] put him back in captivity," said Barbara Murray of Bear Matters B.C. "To put him back in captivity would be a slow death for this animal."

The consortium includes Zoocheck Canada, International Fund for Animal Welfare, Valhalla Wilderness Society, Wildsight, Fur-Bearers, Animal Advocates, World Society for the Protection of Animals and Bear Matters.

Boo has been on the lam from the ski resort since his second escape June 24, when he broke through a steel door and two electric fences. Resort officials and conservation officers have been monitoring his movements daily; Friday, he was 10 kilometres north of the resort.

It seems Boo has taken up company with a female bear -- but mating season should wrap up in a couple of weeks.

Resort spokesman Michael Dalzell said talks are under way with Ministry of the Environment officials to seek options for Boo.

Dalzell said options are being costed and weighed in light of public safety and the health and well-being of the bear.

"It's not as simple as just letting him be in the wild," he said. "You can't go, 'OK, the bear is on its own. Just let him go,' because this bear poses a little bit more of a threat to the public than a normal bear would [because it has been habituated to humans.] So we have to figure out how we are going to deal with that."

Dalzell said plans to neuter Boo in a bid to stem his wanderlust have been put on hold.

Boo and his brother, Cari, were orphaned when a hunter illegally shot their mother in 2002.

The orphans lived in an enclosure at North Vancouver's Grouse Mountain until 2004 when they moved to Kicking Horse Resort. Cari died in 2004.