What has 4 paws & everyone in #Whistler's attention? June 6th Bear report -> https://t.co/TiBSGaLyjk #360ofWB pic.twitter.com/CnlixTIA7g
— Whistler Blackcomb (@WhistlerBlckcmb) June 10, 2016
If your up at Whistler keep your eyes out for a rare black bear with light coloring.
“I have seen cubs ranging [from] black, reddish-brown, chocolate-brown to blonde (after summer bleaching of coat) but never have seen in this population a cub with pelage this light to almost white,” bear expert Michael Allen wrote in a bear-viewing report, according to CBC News.
https://twitter.com/carletonlodge/status/741988507984535552
Local tour guide, Kathy Jenkins, was the first to report seeing the rare cream-colored cub on Monday.
Biologists are trying to determine whether the whitish bear cub is an albino or a spirit bear, a subspecies of black bear known as a Kermode bear.
Kermode bears have been known to roam Central and North Coast regions of British Columbia, Canada. Spirit bears cream-coloured coats is due to a double recessive gene unique in the subspecies. They are not albinos and not any more related to polar bears or the “blonde” brown bears of Alaska’s “ABC Islands” than other members of their species.