Kermode's bear: why have ordinary bears turned white en masse? (9 photos)

Joey's story gets more and more detailed each time, but the gist is the same: someone saw a white bear in the green forest. Kosolapy was mistaken for a polar bear. Local activists called animal rights activists, and they urgently took the bear north. But after a while, experts realized that they had taken the wrong one! In fact, it was an albino brown bear. Kosolapy was urgently returned to his homeland.





Hey, I just came on vacation.

To his misfortune, Potapych again catches the eye of overly active environmentalists. Again anesthesia, again the far north, again survival in the icy wastelands. To add credibility to the story, they attach photos. In them, a bear with white fur really does walk through the forest, and not through the bare tundra.

So what's wrong with this story? Everything!



Where did this navigator of yours lead me again?!

First: real animal protection does NOT work like that. To organize the transportation of an animal, you need to: prepare a bunch of papers, coordinate everything, clarify, agree, double-check seven times and pay a lot of money once for the transportation. The mistake would have been noticed at the first stage! In addition, different types of bears, in addition to the color of their fur, have a lot of other features by which you can distinguish them from each other. Just look at the collage, they are completely different! It is forgivable for an ordinary person not to find 10 differences, but an expert in such a game will never miss.





There are 3 different types of bear in the photo. Can you guess which one is which?

Second: there was NEVER a Joey. Yes, the photo does not show a polar bear. But it is not an albino brown bear either. So who then? A Kermode bear! Ironically, the Kermode bear is a subspecies of the American black bear. Even the Indians knew about its existence, and scientists have been studying the subspecies since the mid-20th century. The unusual clubfooted creatures live in the forests of the Canadian state of British Columbia, on the Pacific coast and nearby islands.



Local Indians call this bear "ghostly." Among the riotous greenery, the light silhouette really does look paranormal.



The American black bear has another color variation - brown! Such a bear can easily be confused with the local grizzly.

There, the bears lead a typical lifestyle for American black bears: they climb trees, eat fatty river fish, grass, berries and carrion in season. Sometimes they hunt insects, small vertebrates and very rarely - large ungulates, like deer.



This could be an ad for your clothes bleach.

At the same time, Kermode bears need to manage not to become dinner for larger or more organized predators - grizzly bears and wolves. They are not very big: Kermode bears grow to be about 105 centimeters at the withers, and their maximum weight is 250 kilograms. For comparison, polar bears, with which our heroes are sometimes confused, are one and a half times taller and three times heavier. Do you feel the difference?



A polar bear above and a Kermode bear below.

What makes the Kermode bear stand out is its color. It is the only one of the 15 subspecies of the American black bear that has a white coat. This color is due to a mutation in the MC1R gene. About 20% of all Kermode bears have two copies of this gene, which prevents them from producing the pigment melanin that colors their fur the usual black color. Not all Kermode bears are white, but all polar bears that live in the forest will be Kermode bears.



Sometimes white Kermode bears give birth to black cubs and vice versa, and black bears give birth to white cubs.

It is not known exactly when this mutation appeared, but its presence worked to the bears' advantage. During the day, white individuals catch fish 35% more often than their black counterparts. The fish confuse the light fur with the glare of the water and are not afraid to float to the surface. This gives Kermode bears a significant advantage - fatty fish, full of caviar, are much more nutritious than roots and wild berries!



This fish will go to the New Year. For the New Year's fat reserves!

Today, there are about 500 polar Kermode bears roaming the Canadian forests. And not one of them has been sent to the Pole! The population is carefully protected by local authorities, and no one will allow such a mistake!