A one-year-old male grizzly bear escaped its enclosure at the Wilder Institute’s Calgary Zoo about 90 minutes before it was supposed to open to the public on Sunday morning, zoo officials have confirmed.
In an email to Global News, zoo media relations said Fitz the grizzly bear got out of his habitat around 7:30 a.m. and that emergency response procedures were immediately activated.
The zoo later said the cub escaped by scaling a three-metre wire-and-mesh fence surrounding the enclosure. Officials said the barrier has since been modified while a review of the incident continues.
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“Fitz was successfully immobilized, and our Animal Care, Health & Welfare team safely relocated him to his back-of-house space. There were no injuries to guests, staff, volunteers or animals,” read the email.
The zoo opened to the public shortly after 9 a.m., however the Wild Canada section of the zoo where the grizzly bear enclosure is located remained closed while a “full assessment of the area” was completed. The area was reopened to guests early Sunday afternoon.
“Our teams will be reviewing the circumstances of the incident as part of our established post-incident procedures. We do not have any further information to share at this time.”
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Fitz is one of two cubs that were orphaned last fall near Diamond Valley that made their public debut at the Wilder Institute’s Calgary Zoo back in May.
Well no wonder he wanted to escape, we give more square feet to football fields than to grizzly bears at the Calgary zoo
Calgary zoo is in the news way too much and not for a good reason..I went to this zoo about 15 years ago and the gorilla cage was unlocked and I could have walked into the enclosure….I will never visit a zoo again after that.
Oh better get the big guns and kill it for not being a perfect bear!
Bears are being killed left and right for not being perfect. Still killing fools who stupidly bring four legged food into their territory.
If we only killed humans who kill humans as quick. But nooo, we feed and water them and house them for life. They can get school, training whatever they want, FREE! They even get paid a little to be in prison.
This society, this country is warped.