The world’s largest temperate rainforest ecoregion is home to bears that appear to come from an altogether different reality—they are white and stand out against the lush greenery. Their color benefits all the inhabitants of this corner of the world.
In early July 2022, the Canadian province of British Columbia banned the hunting of the black bear, also known as the American black bear or baribal. The aim is to protect its subspecies the Kermode bear (also called the spirit bear), which has white fur and sometimes yellow-orange patches on the neck and between the shoulder blades. For many years it was said that the previous regulation, which prohibited the hunting of the Kermode bear specifically, made no sense from a biological point of view. To really protect the subspecies, those with black fur also need to be protected, because they too can carry the “white gene.”
The MC1R gene (the same one responsible for red hair in humans and cream-colored Labradors) is recessive. This means that to be born with white fur, a black bear needs two copies of the gene—one from the mother and one from the father. If it has only one, it will be born black. This is why black bears can have white offspring, just as a brown-eyed couple can have a blue-eyed baby. If each parent passes on a single gene, it will be duplicated in the child. In killing a black bear, the gene pool is depleted, as it is impossible to tell from sight alone if a given animal carries the white gene. Furthermore, in 2020 it turned out that MC1R is twice as rare in bears than was previously supposed, which makes protection of the white ones all the more urgent.
Hen’s Teeth
Kermode bears are the world’s rarest bears. New studies suggest that their numbers are lower than previously thought. While preparing for a trip to their habitat, the Great Bear Rainforest (part of the largest temperate rainforest ecoregion on Earth) a few years back, I read that the number of white bears there was estimated at between four- and five hundred. When I made the journey six months later, sources claimed there were actually one hundred and fifty to two hundred of them. When I arrived in the rainforest, I heard that this small number was probably twice the true population—the latest research has now confirmed this information.
It is no easy task to count bears in the wild. Up until the 1990s, members of the Indigenous Kitasoo/Xai’xais and Gitga’at communities, on whose lands most of these bears live, kept these creatures a secret in order to protect them from poachers. This means efforts to study and count them have only been made fairly recently. To get a reliable picture of their number, researchers need to consider how the bears move around (to avoid double-counting them), the specifics of the coast (which is dotted with islands and vast river valleys), and many other additional factors.
The scientists’ task is not helped by the tangled forest, which spans a huge area and is inaccessible in many places. Working there requires creativity. Pieces of barbed wire, sticks, and moss smeared with fish oil are glued together and scattered around the forest at regular intervals. When a bear approaches such a trap, its fur catches on the wire and a few tufts remain, giving biologists the perfect material for genetic research.
On the four islands inhabited by Kermode bears, only one in ten black bears is white; on the mainland near the islands, the figure is one in a hundred. This is because white genes have a better chance of mingling in a confined territory. Today, scholars and First Nations people are able to identify each one of the animals on the islands; they have even named them.
Indebted to the Ocean
The land on which hunting of all black bears has been banned, regardless of the color of their fur, covers over 10 percent of the Great Bear Rainforest. This forest hugs the coast of the Pacific, almost right in the center of British Columbia, between Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii. It is resilient, decayed, prickly, wet, and overpowering, yet susceptible to the changes occurring around it. The plants within it are of every imaginable size, height, density; of every possible age and stage of decomposition.
It’s an idyllic place for a biologist to work. One is hardly out the door before stumbling across an animal that has always stirred the human imagination: a bear, eagle, raven, or orca. Humpback whales swim along the shoreline every day. With a bit of luck, it’s possible to observe how they catch fish, in groups and tactically: first they gulp some air from above the ocean’s surface, then they dive and circle underwater, gradually releasing air, thus creating a wall of millions of bubbles that traps fish inside. Then they’re easy to catch—as long as you’re a humpback. There are also some legendary animals here, such as the Kermode bears and wolves who only live off what they find in the sea.
This rainforest is intrinsically connected with the Pacific. The forest lives because of the ocean, and the ocean because of the forest—they have been complementing and supporting each other ever since the Ice Age ended. The Great Bear Rainforest originally grew because of the salmon in the ocean. When the period of snow and ice came to an end, a coast carved and plowed by a glacier was revealed—with rough-hewn cliffs, vertical, and quite rocky. Salmon decomposing on the bare rocks (these fish die after swimming upstream to mate) gave rise to soil from which a forest could grow. This process took a relatively short time—only five thousand years have passed since the last natural leveling of water levels—which is why the soil in the Great Bear Rainforest is sometimes a mere six inches deep. Nonetheless, two of the world’s five tallest tree species grow here: the Douglas fir and red cedar.
Today, dead fish are carried through the forest by bears, otters, ravens, and eagles, as well as a large number of smaller critters. A link has been made between the number of fish in a given year and how quickly and abundantly the forest develops. Animals and plants draw nutrients, especially nitrogen, from the rotting salmon. Traces of fish, in the form of nitrogen compounds or bits of bodies, have even been found in the needles on treetops.
The Coastal Life
Right by the shoreline, various shades of foliage line up in even strips a few yards wide, each of a different texture. First the greenery clings smoothly to the rock and is hard to distinguish from its gray color. The strip just above it is greenish-yellow and often edible—seaweed can appear here, for instance. The third strip is the most classic in appearance, grassy green blades jutting upward. The last is overgrown with dark green grasses so tall that they reach the thighs. Further on begins a huge mass of greenery, sometimes stretching hundreds of miles inland.
The Pacific and its tides, sometimes fifteen to twenty feet high, are responsible for these green strips. Their full cycles occur twice every twenty-four hours. At high tide only the dark-green grass is visible, but six hours later all the layers, colors, and textures of the coastal (or littoral) zone are visible again. This is the most habitable part of the water environment: salinity is low, the terrain is diversely sculpted, nutrients flow from the forest. This is the place that receives the most light and oxygen. It is also where the most organic material is created and decomposes, which is why this region is the most susceptible to changes and departures from the norm.
The inhabitants of this zone, from insects to bears (of all colors) and sea wolves, take full advantage of all the privileges that come with living on the border of two environments. The wolves from the British Columbia coastline, genetically separated from their gray continental friends long ago, are marine rather than terrestrial predators. They are great swimmers, able to travel many miles between islands. In the fall they comb beaches, estuaries, and the tidal zone to find and hunt down their favorite food: salmon. Between February and April they eat the herring roe laid on seaweed. They can chip barnacles from rocks, dig mussels out of the sand, hunt seals and otters, and have also been observed devouring a dead whale. Study of their feces has shown that they subsist solely off of seafood. This is one of the most vivid examples of evolution as adaptation to an environment. It is traditionally considered a good omen if you come across a sea wolf.
The foliage of the temperate rainforest is also key for the Kermode bear. It is hard to find an animal that stands out more against the hyper-luscious greenery. The other inhabitants of the Pacific coast can camouflage themselves to a greater or lesser degree, which is no great feat in such a dense and tangled forest. The white bear, meanwhile, is immediately visible—its fur shines through the trees from afar. Yet what may initially seem like a disadvantage makes these bears about 25 percent more effective in catching salmon than their black counterparts. Imagine a salmon swimming upstream to mate. When it sets off, it sees the water’s surface, and a brighter sky overhead. Against this backdrop, white bears are simply less visible. One of their favorite ways of catching salmon is “shadow fishing.” The bear stands motionless in the river until the fish stop considering it a threat and start fearlessly swimming around its claws. Light reflects differently off its white fur, which is why the shadow the hunting animal casts on the water has more blurred contours and is gentler and less noticeable to the fish. As a result of eating more fish, Kermode bears significantly increase their chances of surviving the coming winter and giving birth to healthy cubs.
Watch Out for Cousins
Black bears are an umbrella species at the top of a trophic cascade, which means that whenever something happens further down—a change in the environment of small mammals or salmon, the migration of other species, the acidification of the ocean or a rise in temperature—the bears are something of a litmus test.
A relatively new threat to the Kermode bear—and one that is directly tied to the climate catastrophe—is the grizzly bear (of the brown subspecies). Looking at a map of the region, on the right-hand side of the Princess Royal Channel are lands inhabited by the grizzly, and a few miles across the water on the left is white bear country. As long as salmon was plentiful the grizzly had no need to leave its home in search of new feeding grounds. Moreover, this is one of few places in the world where you can see over a dozen bears of this subspecies living together. They are normally territorial and compete for food; only an unusual abundance of salmon can incline them to live paw-in-paw with each other. At present, however, the salmon situation is extremely bad. Overfishing, local fish farms that breed Atlantic salmon (which are an invasive species in Pacific waters), the rising temperature and acidity of the water, and the felling of the rainforest all mean that streams which, fifteen years ago, saw over three million salmon in a single season, now see 65,000 of them—fifty times less.
This is why grizzly bears, who are fantastic swimmers, are beginning to cross the strait in search of food. They sometimes get to the Kermode bear islands. It is known that black bears are reluctant to share their territory with the grizzly. Even if they happen to live in the same area, it always results in the black bears being pushed back from the best spots for both finding food and preparing for hibernation. If grizzlies begin regularly appearing on the islands that have always belonged to Kermode bears, the latter will have to change their diet, habitat, and behavior. If they move elsewhere, perhaps to the mainland, their gene will begin to dilute and dissipate, and the chances that two of its carriers will meet and give birth to a white bear will be even slimmer. Over the past five years, grizzlies have increasingly been seen swimming west through the strait. For now, people are managing to chase them away from the shore, but this could soon change.
Legendary and Beloved
White bears deeply move people, as can be seen in the first local tales of the creation of the world, which, according to the Indigenous inhabitants of the region, was once entirely white. This was a world that ended because the white began to melt. Other colors gradually emerged from under the snow. Then the Raven, the creator of this world, decided that knowledge of this era had to survive, and he painted every tenth black bear white.
Affection for the white bear is today expressed in songs and on the streets, when locals talk about their daily lives. For instance, it is said that when in 2002 the first longhouse (a narrow, single-room structure, traditionally inhabited by locals, today usually serving as a cultural center, a place for celebration and socializing) in one hundred years was opened in Klemtu (home of the Kitasoo/Xai’xais people), one of the inhabitants’ dead aunts unexpectedly appeared in the shape of a white bear—even though as a rule bears almost never enter the village.
Kermode bears have long been a part of the local tales, myths, and cosmology. Many people also have a very personal relationship with these animals—they consider them to be intimates, sometimes possessing magic powers. Thus the story of the dead aunt fits well the First Nation peoples’ approach to so-called spirit bears.
A fascination with these bears can also be seen in Indigenous art, as well as the work of the world’s greatest nature photographers, including Ian McAllister. What is it about these creatures that so ignites the imagination? That they are simply rare and beautiful seems an insufficient and superficial answer. Why do humans feel so close to them that they see family members in them, build their identities in relation to them, and have even put them on the crest of British Columbia?
One can watch the Kermode bear as it stands by the river, staring at the water, sometimes glancing about the forest, wandering about, occasionally catching a fish and eating a bit (usually just the skin and the head, which are the richest in fat, happily discarding the rest), then moving on. It is possible to see what it is doing and, importantly, owing to its white fur it can be observed more clearly. Its dark eyes and snout are more visible—and thus its reactions to its surroundings. In its darker brother, the eyes and fur blur into one mass, making it harder to see its emotions and project upon it the feelings humans experience ourselves.
The white color is also a source of urban (or rather, woodland) legends. One of them claims that the white bears have longer eyelashes and fingers than their black counterparts. This is untrue, it is just that you can see their lashes better, and thus marvel at their length; people have no chance to see them on a black animal, unless they get up close (which is never advisable with a bear, or any wild animal in general).
According to another woodland legend, if a mother bear has two cubs—one white and one black—she will treat the black one better. This is untrue as well; it is simply a projection of the behavior of other animals (including humans, unfortunately) toward albinos, treating them as outcasts and rejects. No behavioral differences have been observed in closer and more distant bear relatives with black and white kin. Bears remain bears: they set up a hierarchy, basing it on their principles rather than appearances.
Rainforest Ambassadors
Biologists and guides are coming across white bears less and less often—in the last decade, the frequency of such encounters has decreased several times. The disappearance of salmon is a catastrophe for the whole region, causing a chain reaction that affects every inhabitant of the Great Bear Rainforest. The grizzly bear, black bear, and Kermode bear have less access to food. Food for sea wolves is also becoming scarce; so too for the white and golden eagle, raven, otter, weasel, sea lion, orca, and two hundred other animal species. Nor does the forest itself have access to enough nutrients.
The problem is that it is hard to interest the public in fish. Thus the Kermode bear must become the region’s “mouthpiece.” They could help show the threats and dependencies in the temperate rainforest ecosystem and explain why the thoughtful and multifaceted protection of this area is so important. For without our litmus test, the Kermode bear, things will swiftly begin looking darker.
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