A one-year-old grizzly bear is safely back behind barriers after getting out of his habitat at the Wilder Institute/Calgary Zoo on Sunday morning. The zoo says Fitz escaped his habitat around 7:30 a.m., prompting staff to activate emergency response procedures. Trained members of the zoo’s animal care, health and welfare and security teams responded. City of Calgary emergency crews also attended and remained on standby. Fitz was successfully immobilized and safely relocated to a back-of-house space. The incident happened before the zoo opened to the public. No guests, staff members, volunteers or animals were injured. The zoo opened shortly after 9 a.m., but its Wild Canada area remained temporarily closed while staff completed a full assessment. Wild Canada reopened to visitors around noon. The zoo says it is now reviewing the circumstances surrounding the incident through its established post-incident procedures, adding it has no further information to share at this time. It has not disclosed how Fitz exited the habitat, how long he was outside it or how far he travelled. Fitz and his brother Turner were taken in by the Wilder Institute/Calgary Zoo after being orphaned in southern Alberta last fall. Their mother was killed during an encounter with a person near Diamond Valley. Because the cubs were still fully dependent on her, officials determined they would not have survived on their own in the wild.
