TRACKING THE SPIRIT BEAR
Rare, white bears need protection
Christina Service was two years into her work with a bear research team when she saw her first spirit bear.
Bears, including the rare white-coated Kermode bear known as the spirit bear, are not stealthy creatures. Service calls them the “all-terrain vehicles of the forest — you hear them coming, crashing through the bush.”
Service and her team followed the commotion, and found the bear grazing on the grasses along the riverbanks in the Great Bear Rainforest.
To see the elusive spirit bear, stark white with a ginger tinge, against the deep green of the temperate rainforest, was “spectacular,” Service said.
But the spirit bear is far rarer and far more ecologically vulnerable than previously believed, according to Service’s research.
A peer-reviewed study, published in Ecological Solutions and Evidence by Service and a group of scientists and First Nations stewards — from the Kitasoo/Xai’xais and Gitga’at First Nations, the University of Victoria, the Spirit Bear Research Foundation and the Raincoast Conservation Foundation — shows the genetic change that produces the spirit bear is up to 50 per cent rarer than previous estimates.
Service is the wildlife biologist for the Kitasoo/Xai’xais Stewardship Authority and led the research along B.C.’s Central Coast.
She said the study provides valuable data for land use planning and shows that further conservation efforts are needed.
The scientific team worked closely with First Nations partners to collect hair samples systematically from 385 black bears to determine the frequency of the rare gene across 18,000 square kilometres of the Great Bear Rainforest.
The collection was non-invasive. Hundreds of barbed wire corrals were set up across the region, and bears were attracted by smelly scents they love: fish oil and beaver anal gland secretions. Without harming the bear, the barbed wire snagged hair the bears would normally shed.
Individual hairs were collected and labelled and tested for the gene variant behind the spirit bear.
“CSI style, from each hair, we determined the individual bear’s genetic fingerprint, sex, species and for black bears, the specific carriers of the spirit bear gene,” Service said.
The data also provided a “heat map” of spirit bear habitats. “We were able to overlay these hot spots or concentrations with parks and protected areas and see which areas are not protected from industrial activity.”
Only about half of the areas with high concentrations of spirit bears are protected by parks and other protected areas.
Because the spirit bear is simply a black bear with a genetic variant, it is not classified as an endangered species. But the spirit bear, due to its rarity, could be vulnerable even if the wider species it belongs to is doing well.
“When you have really low numbers of anything, each individual has a disproportionately valuable role in ensuring the next generation,” Service said. “You want to give every bear carrying that version of the gene the best shot at survival.”
Chris Picard, the science director for the Gitga’at First Nation who worked on the study, said the region is still under pressure from industry that could threaten the bear.
“We’ve made some progress in establishing conservancies, but this research shows there are gaps and there is more work to do to ensure the species is protected.”
The gene variant, discovered by UBC scientist Kermit Ritland, controls red hair in humans and light hair in other mammals, Service said.
It is illegal to hunt spirit bears, but the hunting of black bears that carry the rare gene variant is a threat, Service said. Both parents must carry copies of the recessive gene variant to produce a spirit bear.
Marven Robinson, a spirit bear guide and councillor for the Gitga’at nation who worked on the study, said provincial government estimates — that there are 300 to 400 spirit bears — are too high.