The Boss, one of the largest and best known grizzly bears in Banff National Park, is back.

No. 122, an approximately 300-kilogram male bear, has left his den and was spotted by a local photographer travelling along the railway tracks near Muleshoe, an area along the Bow Valley Parkway, on Saturday.

“This is really what we’d expect,” said Steve Michel, human/wildlife conflict specialist with Banff National Park. “We’ve been anticipating seeing bears in the first week of March.

“That’s typically what we see or certainly what we have seen for the last several years with respect to the large male grizzly bears.”

Last year, the same bear was spotted on March 19 when he was caught on a remote camera at a research site. In 2014, he was first seen by a train crew near the railway tracks on March 16.

No. 122 is often the first bear out in Banff National Park, but he became famous a couple of years ago for eating a black bear and, more recently, for fathering at least five of the younger bears in the park.

Michel said other males will also emerge shortly, followed by the females. A collared female grizzly, No. 148, was already “somewhat active” near her den site last week, he said.