Rob: Have you seen that video floating around Facebook over the last few days? It looks like a guy was taking a nap on a picnic table at Cascade Ponds and a bear starts ambling towards him. A big bear; the caption says “The Boss”. I’m not actually sure if it is, but regardless people were yelling at this guy to wake up and he does, boots it out of there, running actually, which is probably a bad idea to do around a bear. It’s fortunate that it ended up the way it did, but just a reminder that the bears are out and about!

Tanya: That was a huge bear. I did watch it multiple times, my pulse quickens because that is a close call. I think everyone, good reminder – Bear spray, bear spray, bear spray. Because you can end up in a situation when you’re in really close encounter with a bear unexpectedly. But the bear in the video wasn’t demonstrating any behavior that was aggressive. So remember your wildsmart training and our wildlife safety messaging.

Rob: And just general awareness of your surroundings when you’re out in the woods as well as being in a place like Cascade Ponds. But you’re right, it was basically just a video of a bear being a bear. Speaking of which, a story in the Outlook this week of Split Lip just being a bear, even though his behavior might seem a little shocking to us humans.

Tanya:  This thing that male grizzly bears do, killing the cubs of female grizzly bears in their territory just really doesn’t sit right with us, but it is natural wildlife behavior. We can’t put our human values onto it. This bear, just like The Boss, is kind of one of those notorious bad-ass bears that does things that just makes you think like, damn, that bear has chutzpah.

Rob: No kidding. And in our final, a story of Rob and Tanya and the Three Bears, there’s a very rare white grizzly bear spotted in Banff this spring and it’s caused a lot of discussion.

Tanya: This white or blonde colored grizzly bear cub has been around for a couple of years. It just really hasn’t fallen into the public eye. And I know there’s a lot of people out there who feel that it was inappropriate to write about this bear because they don’t want people to know about it to keep it safe. I just don’t think that that’s an option with the internet and social media these days. What’s really important is we need to get the messaging out to the public about keeping this bear safe. And talk about a stroke of luck for this bear. It is located probably in the most protected landscape it could possibly be in. But it’s feeding on the side of the highway. That’s not safe. We also have to get the messaging out there for people traveling on that highway. Don’t stop, right? Like, let’s not harass this bear.

Filed under: Banff, Bears, Mountain Insider, Wildlife