White Kermode Bear in BC

Was just reading the new Smithsonian magazine and was entranced by the story by Alex Shoumatoff, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/rare-white-bear-key-saving-canadian-rainforest-180956330/ ya gotta check it out - if when we die we could become recreated, I wish to be a spirit or ghost bear, live in the incredible BC Great Bear Rainforest - catch and devour 20 salmon in 20 minutes .  .  .
 Photo by Melissa Groo

That is one cool looking bear!

I wonder if it is part polar bear. Looks like I would give this bear a lot of room.

I wonder if it is part polar bear. Looks like I would give this bear a lot of room.

I was thinking the same thing when I first seen the pict. I guess with all the ice melting/ lack of food a lot of polar bears are moving into Grizzly/ brown bear territories. Since grizzly bears originated from polar bears, I imagine there will be a lot more cross breeding happening. It's called a Grolar bear.

The white bear is known to the Kita­soo as the Moksgm’ol, the spirit, or ghost, bear. The Kitasoo have been living on these coastal islands and fjord-diced tongues of mainland for thousands of years. They revere every living thing, but the Moksgm’ol is especially sacred. It is one of the rarest bears on earth. There are as few as 100, according to some estimates. Scientifically, the white ones, along with their closest black relatives, belong to a subspecies of black bear: the Kermode bear, Ursus americanus kermodei, named in 1905 for Francis Kermode, who helped zoologists find the bears and later became the director of the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria. Geneticists have since learned that the coloration results from a mutation in a gene involved in the production of melanin. (It’s not one of the four genes responsible for albinism.) The trait is recessive: Both parents must carry a copy of the mutated gene for their offspring to be white. In the Great Bear Rainforest, some 500 to 1,200 black bears might be carriers.




The mutation that gives some Kermode bears a white coat is on the same gene responsible for the coloration of golden Labrador retrievers. (Melissa Groo photo)

Cool! Although:

I wish to be a spirit or ghost bear, live in the incredible BC Great Bear Rainforest - catch and devour 20 salmon in 20 minutes .  .  .

If I didn't have hands to tip back some Sake  with those 20 Salmon, I'd have to pass.