Canada’s favorite bear, a 700-pound behemoth called The Boss, has lived a storied life, brawling with other males and surviving getting hit by a train.
His latest stunt was ditching an electronic tracking collar that wildlife agents had just put on him, and nobody’s seen him for a while.
“In true Boss fashion, he somehow got that collar off,” Canadian wildlife photographer Jason Leo Bantle told Cowboy State Daily.
Bantle lives near Banff National Park in Alberta, which The Boss calls home.
He’s one of The Boss bear's biggest fans and has taken countless photographs of the huge bear, which is thought to be about 29 years old.
He hasn’t seen The Boss yet this spring/summer, but he’s not worried. Bantle figures that after ditching his tracking collar, The Boss wandered off to find a feast, or maybe some mates.
“He cruises up and down the valley, looking for girlfriends,” Bantle said.
The Boss is thought to have fathered half of the bears in Banff.
Off Within A Week
The Boss was among three male grizzlies captured and outfitted with collars by wildlife agents on May 13, according to reports.
Within a week, The Boss had slipped out of or ripped off his collar, and his whereabouts remain a mystery.
The Boss has been collared before, but this time around, apparently, “he had enough of humans playing with him," Bantle said.
He added that the last time he saw and photographed The Boss was last fall, before Banff’s bears went into hibernation.
The bear’s fans think it’s hysterical that he ditched his collar, Bantle said.
“People are really laughing about it up here,” he said.
The Boss has earned a new nickname, “Houdini,” after the legendary escape artist Harry Houdini, Bantle said.
What A Life
The Boss is formally known to researchers as Grizzly 122. His chief rival in Banff is Grizzly 136, called Split Lip.
One side of Grizzly 136’s mouth is ripped into what looks like a permanent snarl, which earned him the name Split Lip. He suffered the wound in a fight with The Boss.
A rail line runs through Banff, and at least five grizzlies have been struck and killed by trains.
Not the Boss, though.
According to reports, The Boss is thought to have been struck by a train but escaped serious injury in the mid-2010s.
He had another close call with a train in 2024.
The collar-ditching incident has only added to the legendary status of The Boss, Bantle said.
“There’s nothing that this guy doesn’t do, he really has a unique life,” he said.
“If only we could actually sit down with this grandfather (bear) and hear his stories,” Bantle added.
Dandelion Feast
Bantle figures that The Boss is off somewhere, making the most of being off pesky biologists’ radar.
“We have an incredible dandelion crop right now. I think he just found a field of those, far away from humans, and he’s just feasting on dandelions,” he said.
It’s certainly not unheard of for grizzlies to lose their tracking collars, Canadian bear safety expert Kim Titchener told Cowboy State Daily.
“It’s totally possible,” she said.
“Big males have an incredible amount of fat on their necks in the spring, and you have to be careful not to fit the collars too tightly,” Titchener said.
Although it must be frustrating for biologists to lose track of The Boss, Titchener said she can’t really blame him for getting rid of the tracking device.
“It makes sense. Who would want to walk around with a collar on their neck?” she said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
