{"id":616383,"date":"2026-04-20T11:20:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T11:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/616383\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T11:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T11:20:12","slug":"boomer-the-african-lion-who-escaped-nearly-20-years-ago-dies-at-b-c-zoo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/616383\/","title":{"rendered":"Boomer, the African lion who escaped nearly 20 years ago, dies at B.C. zoo"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Boomer, the lion who made headlines 18 years ago and caused a stir in the Maniwaki, Que., area with his daring escape, has died.<\/p>\n

The shaggy-maned African lion was euthanized in early April at the Greater Vancouver Zoo, where he was eventually transferred after fleeing his keeper in April 2008.<\/p>\n

Boomer died April 8 after suffering from kidney failure, a condition that he’d been receiving treatment for since last year, the zoo said.<\/p>\n

The zoo said it ultimately decided to euthanize him after observing the rapid decline in his quality of life.<\/p>\n

Spent days on the lam<\/p>\n

Many who live in western Quebec may remember Boomer’s incredible bolt from his keeper nearly two decades ago.<\/p>\n

The man, a resident of Kitigan Zibi Anishin\u0101beg, had been looking after Boomer \u2014 who was just seven months old at the time \u2014 for his friend.<\/p>\n

But Boomer managed to break free from his chains and ran from his enclosure. <\/p>\n

That forced schools and daycares in the area to go into lockdown. Police deployed a helicopter equipped with a heat-seeking camera as part of their search, and also warned people not to go out at night or into the woods while he was on the loose. <\/p>\n

A biologist was also brought in to try to understand the lion’s behavior.<\/p>\n

Boomer was eventually found a few days later and transferred to the Granby Zoo east of Montreal, where he became an internet sensation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"A“The [Kitigan Zibi Police Service] will always remember Boomer for his love of Chief McGregor’s steak,” the force wrote in a post on Facebook. (Kitigan Zibi Police Service\/Facebook)<\/p>\n

Boomer was later sent to the Greater Vancouver Zoo, despite his owner’s attempts to reclaim him.<\/p>\n

While he ultimately spent most of his life in British Columbia, Boomer remained important to many in western Quebec.<\/p>\n

“Boomer will always have a place in our hearts,” read recent a social media post from the Kitigan Zibi Police Service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 2 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":["post-616383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}