Spirit Bears

Where: Great Bear Rainforest - British Columbia

The Story: We travelled to British Columbia with the specific hope of seeing these rare and difficult to find 'Spirit Bears'. These bears are actually white morphs of the Black Bear that reside on this coastline. The white coat is the effect of a recessive gene so Spirit Bears can be the offspring of black bear parents. They are not albinos (a lack of melanin pigment) as they do have pigment - witness the black noses. Rather, they are 'blond'. There are thought to be only about 500 of these bears (perhaps even as few as 200-300) out of the North American Black Bear population. Seeing these bears and being able to photograph them is quite a privilege. The ongoing survival of these bears is wholly dependent on the conservation of the Great Bear Rainforest that forms the west coast of British Columbia and the survival of the Pacific salmon species that are an essential component of this eco system. There are both hopeful signs that this magnificent coast is being recognised as one of the planets truly special wildernesses however, it remains under constant threat of further development from mineral extraction including oil and natural gas.

On our visit, over the period of a couple of days patient waiting, we were treated to sightings of two spirit bears on two different salmon streams. Both encounters were 'walk pasts' with each bear making its way upstream foraging for salmon. I've also included a couple of black bear at the end of these sequences. The black and white bear co-habit the area and are as likely seen as the white ones.

Equipment & Settings: Shot with a Nikon D500 with 200-500 f/5.6 at various zoom settings (the bears came quite close). A variety of shutter speeds and ISO settings were used as the light changed under the forest canopy, though the open canopy above the streams does let a bit more light through than in the full forest. ISO typically 800 to 3200).