Spirit Bears in Danger in Great Bear Rainforest

The Great Bear Rainforest along the Pacific coast of British Columbia is one of the few largely unspoiled areas of the world left. Rich wildlife from lush vegetation to plentiful deer and the packs of wolves that hunt them to grand grizzly bears call the forest home. Orcas and humpback whales live in the channels and coves surrounding the rainforest, while salmon swim freely through the streams. The Great Bear Rainforest is also home to the animal for which it is named—the spirit bear.

Spirit bears, also called Kerome bears, are a subspecies of black bear with white fur. According to a video by Paul Burwell, these bears only live in the Great Bear Rainforest from Prince Rupert Island to Princess Royal Island where most of them are concentrated. They are not related to polar bears, and their black eyes and paw pads show that they are not albinos. Rather, the Nature Conservancy says that their white fur is the result of a recessive gene found in this region. When two black bears with the recessive gene mate, a white cub can be produced. One in ten black bears born in this area is white. Scientists believe that the bears’ coloring helps them blend in with the rapids where they fish, allowing them to catch more salmon than their black counterparts. Even so, spirit bears are endangered with less than 400 living in the wild.

Spirit bears are being threatened by four major sources:

• Hunting
• Fish farming
• The logging industry
• The proposed Northern Gate Oil Pipeline

Hunting

Spirit bears themselves are protected from hunting by local laws. However, the black bears that carry the recessive gene are not protected. As Burwell said in his video, “When someone kills a black bear for a trophy on a wall, the special genes that helped create the spirit bear die along with the black bear.” Hunting has decreased gene pool diversity and the number of black bears carrying the recessive gene.

Fish Farming

Fish farms producing Atlantic salmon have been spreading through the channels surrounding the Great Bear Rainforest. Atlantic salmon, which are obviously not native to British Columbia, have a lot of sea lice. When the sea lice get into the channels and streams of the rainforest, freshly-hatched native salmon are forced to swim through lice-infested waters. The lice overtake and kill the young, native salmon. As of 2009, the native salmon population was terribly low. This adversely affects all bear populations in the rainforest because they need the nutrients and fat from the native salmon to sustain them through winter hibernation. Furthermore, wild salmon are crucial to the rainforest ecosystem as a whole because they are a key source of food for many animals.

The Logging Industry

Logging and industrial development fragment the spirit bears’ habitat, which decreases gene pool diversity as well as the likelihood that two bears with the recessive gene will mate. The Nature Conservancy helped with this problem by completing a successful fundraising campaign aimed at historic land use agreements. In 2009, logging was banned in 5 million acres of rainforest. Over 19 million acres were placed under guidelines called ecosystem based management.

Northern Gateway Oil Pipeline

The largest and most pressing threat to the spirit bears and the Great Bear Rainforest comes from an oil pipeline proposed by a company called Enbridge. The Northern Gateway Oil Pipeline would run from Alberta to British Columbia, passing directly through the Great Bear Rainforest and spirit bear habitat so that oil could be shipped to China. Tar sands oil from Canada is the most environmentally hazardous form of oil and spills more often than crude oil. An oil spill would destroy the pristine rainforest ecosystem, killing salmon and the species that depend on them, including the spirit bears. Massive oil tankers in the bay and channels around the rainforest would be terribly dangerous to endangered humpback whales that could collide with the ships. This pipeline would also be awful for the native people of British Columbia who depend on the seafood in the bay for their livelihood.

 

Enbridge has been campaigning hard by creating commercials about how the pipeline would be good for Canada. In reality, 90 percent of jobs related to the pipeline would go to current Enbridge employees rather than Canadians. The oil being shipped to China would not heat the homes of Canadians. Wildlife in the Great Bear Rainforest and the surrounding waters would suffer, while the native people could lose their livelihoods. The only ones who will benefit from this pipeline are Enbridge and China, and you can be sure that the company knows that.

What can you do to help?

• Sign this ongoing petition from dogwoodinitiative.org against the Northern Gateway Oil Pipeline.
• Purchase only wild-caught rather than farm-raised fish at grocery stores and in restaurants.
• Support organizations like Pacific Wild and the Nature Conservancy that are dedicated to protecting our fragile ecosystems.
• Visit the Raincoast Conservation Foundation online to learn more about ways you can help. This site provides updated information about the ongoing pipeline battle as well as a letter that can be e-mailed to British Columbia Premier Christy Clark at premier@gov.bc.ca.

Thank you! This issue is very important to me, and I sincerely hope that you will take the time to help protect the Great Bear Rainforest. Please let me know what you’re doing to help in the comments.