Grizzly makes escape despite steel door, electric barriers and high fence
By The Calgary Herald

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 British Columbia 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.

"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.

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 outside his enclosure.

"It?s just a sad situation. He is clearly a bear that wants to be free, yet we?ve created a situation where it?s not really safe for him to be free."

?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.?