In Banff, Grizzly Bear 122 'the Boss' Reigns as Celebrity, and His Fame May Be His Greatest Risk

To the scientists and wardens at Banff National Park, he is grizzly bear 122. To the people who live in and around Canada's oldest national park, and to many of the 4.5 million visitors who come each year, he is the Boss. He weighs about 700 pounds, he has four-inch claws, and he is now in his mid-20s, which is old for a bear.

The Boss has been hit by a freight train with no apparent ill effect. Cars have struck him too, and he shrugged those off as well. Scientists have confirmed that he killed and ate a black bear at least once. He is believed to have fathered many, if not most, of the bears in his 2,000-square-kilometer territory. His fights with a rival known as Split Lip are local legend, and the Boss is the reason for the split lip.

Fame has followed. When he walks along the Trans-Canada Highway looking for dandelions, bear jams form quickly. News outlets across Alberta report on his waking from hibernation, usually in March. Galleries in Banff and neighboring Canmore ship large photographs of him around the world, and his face turns up on fridge magnets, T-shirts and tote bags. A local restaurant carries his name, and its main dining room is dominated by a scrap metal sculpture of him.

Yet bear experts say that despite his fearsome look, few consider him a danger to visitors or residents. They worry instead that his celebrity, and the crowds it draws, may be the greatest threat to his life and his dominance. Paul Kalra, a gas station owner and nature photographer, shares that worry. More than 20 years ago, his photos in a local newspaper drew attention to the bear, and he is widely credited with naming him. Sitting in the restaurant at his service station in Dead Man's Flats, Kalra said the Boss deserves a break. Even the most famous movie stars go incognito in sunglasses when they want a burger, he said, and he wants the same for the bear.

Geography explains part of the fame. About 75 grizzlies live across Banff's 6,641 square kilometers of mountains, rivers and valleys, but the Boss's home range overlaps the park's main tourist gateway. Three years ago he wandered into Canmore, a former coal mining town just east of the park, apparently after crab apples. Bill Hunt, the former natural resources conservation manager at Banff, was packing a U-Haul at his Canmore house when the bear came up the street, about 12 feet away. The Boss could have gone around, Hunt said, or taken the power line below the house. Instead he walked down the middle of the road, white claws hanging over his front paws.

Grizzlies can be dangerous. This month, conservation officers in British Columbia killed a female grizzly and her three cubs after DNA tied them to a fatal attack on a woman and her daughter. But David Laskin, a Parks Canada wildlife ecologist, says the danger most grizzlies pose is overstated. Banff's grizzlies, the Boss included, are largely vegetarian; berries, roots and other plants make up about 90 percent of their diet. The Boss can eat about 200,000 buffaloberries a day. When he wore a tracking collar for most of 2012, he covered about 1,400 kilometers in search of food. Laskin says grizzlies pull branches to their mouths with their claws and nibble the berries off, and he cautions that getting close to a bear puts both person and animal at risk.

Under the park's bear management plan, the Boss is classed as habituated, meaning he is indifferent to people if left alone. When trail cameras, sightings and paw prints suggest he is heading toward Banff, Canmore or campgrounds, park workers gently steer him another way and clear visitors from his path. Hunt says the bears to worry about are those that decide garbage, bird feeders and fruit trees beat foraging; that subtle shift, he says, is when bears become dangerous. Both towns enforce strict garbage rules and run programs to replace fruit trees.

Earlier this year the Boss was found in a trap set for another study bear, and Laskin got close. The bear was sedated, examined and fitted with a collar that soon fell off, most likely in a fight. His teeth are worn, and he smells bad, but there is no sign of the shrinking that typically follows a grizzly's physical peak at about age 10. Laskin was reluctant to discuss how the fur feels, wary of encouraging petting-zoo behavior, but conceded the coat is soft. Whether the Boss wakes next spring is an open question, as is whether plans to cut 500 jobs at Parks Canada will touch the program that keeps him out of harm's way.