Free Willy, they said, and theatre audiences agreed - when Willy was a whale and Hollywood could ensure a happy ending.
This time, Willy was a bear - a real, live Syrian brown bear - and his brief brush with freedom was far from comforting to owners of the Southern Ontario zoo he escaped from, or to the good people of surrounding Stevensville, who put their lives on hold as an exhaustive search unfolded yesterday.
Two dozen police, aided by firefighters from five stations; 50 workers from Zooz, a 45-hectare tourist attraction; and a helicopter from the Niagara County, N.Y., sheriff's office, spent the day scouring the area in an ever-widening search covering about nine-square kilometres.
In the end, five-year-old Willy didn't get very far; he was sedated and captured at about 2:30 p.m., about 500 metres from Zooz, but he sure kept his pursuers hopping in the meantime.
"To have it successfully conclude without anyone getting hurt, including the officers and including the bear, that's the way it's designed to happen," Constable Sal Basilone said at day's end. "We're really happy in this case."
Marianne Tykolis-Casey, who owns Zooz with her two brothers, was ecstatic at the outcome, "which could have been a lot worse" had Willy turned aggressive, she said. Instead, he was being his usual laid-back self when a police tactical officer shot him with a tranquillizer dart. He was resting easily, reunited with his brother, Johnny, at the zoo last night.
Through the day, parts of major roads were closed, as Ms. Tykolis-Casey fretted over Willy, who was born in captivity and had no experience in the world outside his chain-link enclosure.
An animal-welfare group that monitors captive animals across Canada complained of inadequate zoo regulation in Ontario, where 20 escapes had been documented since 1985, until Willy made it 21.
"It's unfortunate but not surprising when an animal escapes a zoo in Ontario, because we have no safety regulations at all," said Melissa Tkachyk, spokeswoman for the World Society for the Protection of Animals. "It highlights what we have been asking for for many years now," namely, a law that sets out standards to ensure zoos are safe for animals and the public.
Authorities first spotted Willy tasting freedom with his snout in a compost bin, at about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday. The 136-kilogram (300-pound) bear had just startled Darlene Crosby and her husband, Lynn, outside their rural home across from the Zooz site.
"I was letting the dogs out for a minute to do their business," Ms. Crosby, 50, said yesterday. "I turn my head and there, at the end of my porch, is the bear."
She called the dogs inside and summoned her husband, who got within about two metres of Willy and dropped a concrete ornament near the porch in an effort to keep him at bay. The bear skulked off toward the garage.
They called 911 and officers in four cruisers arrived moments later.
"They circled around the barn," Ms. Crosby said, but Willy "just kind of eluded them."
Told by police to vacate the house for their own safety, the Crosbys spent the night in their truck, parked up the street.
Yesterday morning, they and Stevensville's 1,500 other residents awoke to cruisers at major corners, the whirr of a chopper overhead and precious little customer traffic in local businesses.
At the Scuttlebutt Tap and Eatery, only one customer had come through as of noon instead of the usual dozen, said Linda Ferri, who runs the tavern with her husband. Eventually, a local taxidermist named Roger Galloway made his way there to show off recent photos he took of Willy at the zoo. Eventually, Zooz workers, police in tow, zeroed in on the bear.
Happy endings aside, Ms. Tkachyk of the WSPA said further incidents are likely unless the province steps in to regulate roadside zoos.
Ms. Crosby, who came face-to-face with Willy, said she would like to see another fence installed around the entire Zooz property, and alarms to alert workers if an animal escapes.
While it's still unknown how Willy got away, Ms. Tykolis-Casey said "human error" was an early theory. The bear enclosure consists of a high chain-link fence that is electrified along its base, with a smaller fence outside it to keep visitors back.
She also couldn't say how, in June of 2005, a tapir escaped from Zooz. The endangered pig-like mammal from South America was later found.
"We will do whatever it takes to prevent this from happening again," Ms. Tykolis-Casey said.