Monday evening as I sit down in front of my monitor filled with words in my mind for my next post I come across something in Google. A Polar bear, is he not cute? I get distracted as usual and click on the link to view the photo. But little did I know one click can open a different world. I entered the world of Spirit Bears. Be it the first time or the fifth time they will still look like polar bears. But they are not.What makes them unique? How can you differentiate? With too many questions in my mind I hit the search button. In an instant thousands of suggestions popped up. But Im going to consolidate the information , basically free you from the boring zoological terms.
Spirit Bears or the Kermode Bears is a subspecies of the American Black Bear living in the central and north coast of British Columbia. What is the reason behind that particular fur type? They are not Albinos(partial pigmentation or absence of pigment), They are not related to Polar bears in any way nor are they related to the blond brown bears of Alaska. The colour morph is mainly because of recessive allele, which in simple terms means the dominance of one gene variant over another gene variant. The name Kermode comes after the researcher Francis Kermode, who researched the subspecies. Also what most of us dont know is that Kermode bears are the official animal of British Columbia. Now that we know the basics lets get to the complicated part.
Just like any other animal, spirit bears also have to fight for their life and space. 'Spirit bear faces pipeline threat' as I read the headlines from a news website my heart almost stops beating because it took hardly 15 minutes for me to discover this species and its endangerment. A proposed 1,172 km pipeline at the cost of $5.5bn in Canada from Kitimat to Bruderheim poses threat to one of the cute and nearly-extinct creatures on Earth. Will the selfishness of Homosapiens ever stop? But maybe I should not generalize it. When I'm here talking about Spirit bears and the fight for their living I should mention about Simon Jackson, the founder of Spirit Bear Youth Coalition.He has been fighting over 8 years now for the spirit bears. And how we can help better the situation is by spreading the information. I have done my part. Its upto you now.
In an era when the world sees the end of species that first brought life on earth, humans-the latest entry in the race for survival, cannot contain their avarice. As tigers and bears struggle to survive, the ungrateful sapien robs their basic right to life in an attempt to see an end to his never ending needs. But all it is, and will be, an attempt. Meanwhile, too much would have been lost, nature stripped of its right to create and pro-create.
I thought they were polar bears too! Thanks for all the insight. =)
ReplyDeleteThey look so endearing. It would be a sad state if they, too, become extinct. :(
ReplyDelete@Preethi - Its okie.. I hope this way more people get to know about them.
ReplyDelete@Janane - They are the official animal of the state and the population figure is 500. What could be worse than this?
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