48-585: The spirit bear , sometimes called the Kermode bear ( Ursus americanus kermodei ), is a subspecies of the American black bear and lives in the Central and North Coast regions of British Columbia , Canada. It is the official provincial mammal of British Columbia and symbol of Terrace, British Columbia . While most Kermode bears are black, between 100 and 500 fully white individuals exist. The white variant
96-700: A separate description is warranted. These distinct groups do not interbreed as they are isolated from another, but they can interbreed and have fertile offspring, e.g. in captivity. These subspecies, races, or populations, are usually described and named by zoologists, botanists and microbiologists. In a monotypic species, all populations exhibit the same genetic and phenotypical characteristics. Monotypic species can occur in several ways: Southeast Alaska 57°34′48″N 135°29′14″W / 57.58000°N 135.48722°W / 57.58000; -135.48722 Southeast Alaska , often abbreviated to southeast or southeastern , and sometimes called
144-498: A single, nonsynonymous nucleotide substitution in the MC1R gene causes melanin to not be produced. This mutant gene is recessive, so Kermode bears with two copies of this mutant, nonfunctional gene appear white, while bears with one copy or no copies appear black. Two black bears can mate and produce a white cub if both of these black bears are heterozygous, carrying one copy of the mutant MC1R gene, and both mutant genes are inherited by
192-483: A species is a binomial or binomen, and comprises two Latin words, the first denoting the genus and the second denoting the species. The scientific name of a subspecies is formed slightly differently in the different nomenclature codes. In zoology, under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), the scientific name of a subspecies is termed a trinomen , and comprises three words, namely
240-426: A species. Botanists and mycologists have the choice of ranks lower than subspecies, such as variety (varietas) or form (forma), to recognize smaller differences between populations. In biological terms, rather than in relation to nomenclature, a polytypic species has two or more genetically and phenotypically divergent subspecies, races , or more generally speaking, populations that differ from each other so that
288-417: A subspecies. A common criterion for recognizing two distinct populations as subspecies rather than full species is the ability of them to interbreed even if some male offspring may be sterile. In the wild, subspecies do not interbreed due to geographic isolation or sexual selection . The differences between subspecies are usually less distinct than the differences between species. The scientific name of
336-787: A tourism agency in 1947 under the name Arctic Alaska Tours which was renamed Westours, which originally arranged trips for travelers on steamships. The border between Alaska and the Canadian province of British Columbia was the subject of the Alaska boundary dispute , where the United States and the United Kingdom claimed different borderlines at the Alaskan panhandle. While the British foreign affairs were in favor of support of
384-438: Is a rank below species , used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics ( morphology ), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species have subspecies, but for those that do there must be at least two. Subspecies is abbreviated as subsp. or ssp. and the singular and plural forms are the same ("the subspecies is" or "the subspecies are"). In zoology , under
432-414: Is a subspecies or a full species, the species name may be written in parentheses. Thus Larus (argentatus) smithsonianus means the American herring gull ; the notation within the parentheses means that some consider it a subspecies of a larger herring gull species and therefore call it Larus argentatus smithsonianus , while others consider it a full species and therefore call it Larus smithsonianus (and
480-616: Is based in Craig, Alaska . Debates over whether to expand logging in the federally owned Tongass are not uncommon. Mining remains important in the northern area with the Juneau mining district and Admiralty mining district hosting active mines as of 2015. Gold was discovered in 1880 and played an important part in the early history of the region. In the 2010s, mines increasingly began to be explored and eventually completed in neighboring British Columbia , upstream of important rivers such as
528-491: Is by far the largest air carrier in the region, with Juneau's Juneau International Airport serving as the aerial hub for all of southeast, and Ketchikan's Ketchikan International Airport serving as a secondary hub for southern southeast Alaska. Alaska's bush airlines and air taxis serve many of the smaller and more isolated communities and villages in the regions. Many communities are accessible by air only by floatplane , as proper runways are often difficult to construct on
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#1732783278975576-594: Is known as spirit bear, and is most common on three islands in British Columbia ( Gribbell , Princess Royal , and Roderick ), where they make up 10–20% of the Kermode population. Spirit bears hold a prominent place in the oral traditions of the indigenous peoples of the area . They have also been featured in a National Geographic documentary and in the BBC TV series Planet Earth III . The Kermode bear
624-677: Is the northern terminus of the Inside Passage , a protected waterway of convoluted passages between islands and fjords, beginning in Puget Sound in Washington state. This was an important travel corridor for Tlingit , Haida , and Tsimshian Native peoples, as well as gold-rush era steamships. In modern times it is an important route for Alaska Marine Highway ferries as well as cruise ships . Southeast Alaska includes seven entire boroughs and two census areas , in addition to
672-656: Is the sixth largest national park in the United States . On August 20, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt established the Alexander Archipelago Forest Reserve, which formed the heart of the Tongass National Forest that covers most of the region. The climate of southeast Alaska is dominated by a mid-latitude oceanic climate ( Köppen Cfb ) in the south, an oceanic, marine sub-polar climate ( Köppen Cfc ) in
720-520: The Alaska ( n ) panhandle , is the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Alaska , bordered to the east and north by the northern half of the Canadian province of British Columbia (and a small part of Yukon ). The majority of southeast Alaska is situated in Tlingit Aaní , much of which is part of the Tongass National Forest , the United States' largest national forest . In many places,
768-485: The Alexander Archipelago . The largest islands are, from North to South, Chichagof Island , Admiralty Island , Baranof Island , Kupreanof Island , Revillagigedo Island and Prince of Wales Island . Major bodies of water of southeast Alaska include Glacier Bay , Lynn Canal , Icy Strait , Chatham Strait , Stephens Passage , Frederick Sound , Sumner Strait , and Clarence Strait . The archipelago
816-559: The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature , the subspecies is the only taxonomic rank below that of species that can receive a name. In botany and mycology , under the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants , other infraspecific ranks , such as variety , may be named. In bacteriology and virology , under standard bacterial nomenclature and virus nomenclature , there are recommendations but not strict requirements for recognizing other important infraspecific ranks. A taxonomist decides whether to recognize
864-721: The Pacific temperate rain forest zone, as classified by the World Wildlife Fund 's ecoregion system, which extends from northern California to Prince William Sound . The most common tree species are sitka spruce and western hemlock . Wildlife includes brown bears , black bears , endemic Alexander Archipelago wolf packs, Sitka black-tailed deer , humpback whales , orcas , five species of salmon , bald eagles , harlequin ducks , scoters , and marbled murrelets . The Ecological Atlas of Southeast Alaska , published by Audubon Alaska in 2016, offers an overview of
912-746: The Unuk and the Stikine , which became known as the transboundary mining issue. In 2014, the dam breach at the Mount Polley mine focused attention on the issue, and an agreement between Canada and Alaska was drafted in 2015. The proposed Kerr Sulphurets Mitchell exploration is upstream of the Unuk. Mines upstream of the Stikine include the Red Chris, which is owned by the same company (Imperial Metals) as
960-615: The international border runs along the crest of the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains (see Alaska boundary dispute ). The region is noted for its scenery and mild, rainy climate . The largest cities in the region are Juneau , Sitka , and Ketchikan . This region is also home to Hyder , the easternmost town in Alaska. Southeast Alaska has a land area of 35,138 square miles (91,010 km ), comprising much of
1008-449: The 1960s after cruise ship entrepreneur Stanley B. McDonald repurposed a transport ship named Princess Pat, founding Princess Cruises to do leisure cruises which expanded into southeast Alaska by 1969. The TV series The Love Boat was set on a Princess cruise and featured episodes in Alaska; it also helped to popularize cruising generally which helped it grow rapidly between 1977 and 1987. Prior to Princess cruises, Chuck West created
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#17327832789751056-485: The Canadian argument, the event resulted in what was thought of as a betrayal, leading to alienation of the British from the new nation of Canada . Due to the extremely rugged, mountainous nature of Southeastern Alaska, almost all communities (with the exception of Hyder , Skagway , and Haines ) have no road connections outside of their locale, so aircraft and boats are the major means of transport. The Alaska Marine Highway passes through this region. Alaska Airlines
1104-656: The Mount Polley mine. Major hospitals include Bartlett Regional Hospital in Juneau and PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Center in Ketchikan. Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium runs healthcare facilities across 27 communities as of 2022, including hospitals in Sitka and Wrangell; although it originally served Native Americans only, it has expanded access and combined with other local facilities over time. Due to
1152-431: The bear was healthy enough to survive on his own and that he should be relocated and released back into the wild. Provincial government wildlife officials maintained their position against attempting a long-distance relocation, stating that the risks outweighed the possible benefits, and as of February 2023, the bear remains in captivity. Subspecies In biological classification , subspecies ( pl. : subspecies)
1200-453: The binomen followed by the name of the subspecies. For example, the binomen for the leopard is Panthera pardus . The trinomen Panthera pardus fusca denotes a subspecies, the Indian leopard . All components of the trinomen are written in italics. In botany , subspecies is one of many ranks below that of species, such as variety , subvariety , form , and subform. To identify the rank,
1248-707: The black Kermode bears. The U. a. kermodei subspecies ranges from Princess Royal Island to Prince Rupert, British Columbia , on the coast and inland toward Hazelton, British Columbia . It is known in the Tsimshianic languages as moksgmʼol. In the February 2006 Speech from the Throne , the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia announced the government's intention to designate the Kermode, or spirit bear, as British Columbia's official animal. It
1296-473: The central region around Juneau , and a subarctic climate ( Köppen Dfc ) to the far northwest and the interior highlands of the archipelago. Southeast Alaska is also the only region in Alaska where the average daytime high temperature is above freezing during the winter months, except for in the southern parts of the Aleutian islands such as Unalaska . Southeast Alaska is a temperate rain forest within
1344-571: The cruise ship industry). Logging has been an important industry in the past, but has been steadily declining with competition from other areas and the closure of the region's major pulp mills; the Alaska Forest Association described the situation as "desperate" in 2011. Its members include Alcan Forest Products (owned by Canadian Transpac Group, one of the top 5 log exporters in North America ) and Viking Lumber, which
1392-490: The cub. Additional genetic studies found that white Kermode bears breed more with white Kermode bears, and black Kermode bears breed more with black Kermode bears, in a phenomenon known as positive assortative mating. One hypothesis is that this happens because young bears imprint on their mother's fur colour. Kermode bears are omnivorous for most of the year, subsisting mainly on herbage and berries except during autumn salmon migrations, when they become obligate predators. During
1440-492: The day, white bears are 35% more successful than black bears in capturing salmon. Salmon evade large, black models about twice as frequently as they evade large white models, giving white bears an advantage in salmon hunting. The white fur of the bear is harder to spot under water by fish than black fur is, so the bear can catch fish more easily. On some islands, white Kermode bears have more marine-derived nutrients in their fur, indicating that white Kermode bears eat more salmon than
1488-631: The economy of the Klemtu Indian Reserve . The operators have complained about hunting, stating they have seen bear carcasses, and that hunting makes the bears more wary of humans and harder to spot. In October 2012, a Kermode bear, believed to be the first in captivity, became a resident of the British Columbia Wildlife Park in Kamloops . The yearling cub was found abandoned in northwestern British Columbia on
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1536-813: The fishing and ferries in the region, ship building and maintenance are economically significant. Ketchikan hosts a shipbuilding yard owned by Vigor Industrial . Tourists visit southeast Alaska primarily in the summer, and most visit via cruise ships , which run from April 15 to October 30. In 2019, around 1.3 million people visited Alaska by cruise ship. The northbound Inside Passage cruise commonly starts from either Seattle or Vancouver, Canada and stops in various ports including Ketchikan, Juneau, and Skagway. One-way trips will end in Whittier or Seward. An alternative Gulf of Alaska cruise starts in Whittier (Anchorage) and also passes through southeast Alaska's Inside Passage. The cruise ship industry became prominent in
1584-675: The large Princess and Prince Royal Islands. The largest concentration of the white bears inhabits 80-square-mile (210 km) Gribbell Island , in the territory of the Gitgaʼata people . The bear's habitat was potentially under threat from the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines , whose planned route would have passed near the Great Bear Rainforest . Indigenous groups including the Gitgaʼat opposed
1632-420: The movement of grizzlies across the coasts and rainforest. They found that grizzlies are moving into black bear and Kermode bear salmon feeding grounds more often. This disrupts the feeding of Kermode and other black bears, as they often retreat once grizzlies arrive. Spirit Bear Lodge is an ecolodge that provides bear sightseeing opportunities, provides education about British Columbia bears, and has stimulated
1680-493: The nutrient intake of both aqueous and terrestrial environments. The salmon contribute nutrients to water during spawning and contribute to the land with decomposition of their carcasses when predators, such as bears, scatter them throughout the forest. In 2012, the coastal First Nations banned trophy hunting of all bears in their territories in the Great Bear Rainforest. In 2017, after much public pressure to end
1728-407: The pipeline. The Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline was rejected by the federal government in 2016. Although the Kermode bear is not rare, considerable conservation efforts have been made to maintain the subspecies' population due to the bear's cultural significance. The majority of the Kermode bears' protein intake is from salmon during the fall. Salmon are a keystone species and are important to
1776-468: The portion of the Yakutat Borough lying east of 141° West longitude. Although it has only 6.14 percent of Alaska's land area, it is larger than the state of Maine , and almost as large as the state of Indiana . The southeast Alaskan coast is roughly as long as the west coast of Canada. The 2010 census population of southeast Alaska was 71,616 inhabitants, representing approximately 10% of
1824-470: The practice, the government of British Columbia banned the trophy hunting of grizzlies in the Great Bear Rainforest, but the hunting of black bears remains legal. A concern in regards to hunting is potential poaching . Grizzly bears also pose a threat to Kermode bear populations because of the decline of natural resources, especially salmon populations that are becoming subject to climate change and overfishing. Using noninvasive hair-line traps scientists tracked
1872-467: The rank of variety are taken to be names of subspecies (see International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes ). As in botany, subspecies is conventionally abbreviated as "subsp.", and is used in the scientific name: Bacillus subtilis subsp. spizizenii . In zoological nomenclature , when a species is split into subspecies, the originally described population is retained as the "nominotypical subspecies" or "nominate subspecies", which repeats
1920-628: The region's landscape, birds, wildlife, human uses, climate change, and more, synthesizing data from agencies and a variety of other sources. This area is the traditional homeland of the Tlingit , and home of a historic settling of Haida as well as a modern settlement of Tsimshian . The region is closely connected to Seattle and the American Pacific Northwest economically and culturally. Major industries in southeast Alaska include commercial fishing and tourism (primarily
1968-418: The same name as the species. For example, Motacilla alba alba (often abbreviated M. a. alba ) is the nominotypical subspecies of the white wagtail ( Motacilla alba ). The subspecies name that repeats the species name is referred to in botanical nomenclature as the subspecies " autonym ", and the subspecific taxon as the "autonymous subspecies". When zoologists disagree over whether a certain population
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2016-421: The side of Terrace Mountain near Terrace . After two unsuccessful attempts to rehabilitate and release him back into the wild, the cub, now nicknamed Clover by handlers, was sent to the park when conservation officers decided that he was not a candidate for relocation. The park has plans to create a custom home for the bear, which escaped from his temporary enclosure once. Animal-rights group Lifeforce believed that
2064-547: The state's total population. About 45% of residents in the southeast Alaska region were concentrated in the city of Juneau , the state capital. As of 2018, the number of settlements in southeast Alaska that have a population of at least 1,000 people has grown to nine. Populations are taken from the 2020 Census . Southeast Alaska includes the Tongass National Forest (which manages Admiralty Island National Monument and Misty Fjords National Monument ), Glacier Bay National Park , and Sitka National Historical Park . Glacier Bay
2112-495: The steep island slopes. Southeast Alaska is primarily served by the state-run Alaska Marine Highway , which links Skagway, Haines, Hoonah , Juneau , Sitka , Petersburg , Wrangell , Ketchikan and other outlying communities with Prince Rupert, BC and Bellingham, Washington ; and secondarily by the Prince of Wales Island -based Inter-Island Ferry Authority , which provides the only scheduled passenger and auto ferry service to
2160-563: The subspecific name must be preceded by "subspecies" (which can be abbreviated to "subsp." or "ssp."), as in Schoenoplectus californicus subsp. tatora . In bacteriology , the only rank below species that is regulated explicitly by the code of nomenclature is subspecies , but infrasubspecific taxa are extremely important in bacteriology; Appendix 10 of the code lays out some recommendations that are intended to encourage uniformity in describing such taxa. Names published before 1992 in
2208-425: The user of the notation is not taking a position). A subspecies is a taxonomic rank below species – the only such rank recognized in the zoological code, and one of three main ranks below species in the botanical code. When geographically separate populations of a species exhibit recognizable phenotypic differences, biologists may identify these as separate subspecies; a subspecies is a recognized local variant of
2256-480: Was adopted as such in April of that year. A male Kermode bear can reach 225 kg (496 lb) or more. Females are much smaller, with a maximum weight of 135 kg (298 lb). Straight up, it stands 180 cm (71 in) tall. Fewer than 400 white-coloured bears were estimated to exist in the coast area that stretches from Southeast Alaska southwards to the northern tip of Vancouver Island; about 120 inhabit
2304-612: Was named after Frank Kermode, former director of the Royal B.C. Museum , who researched the subspecies and was a colleague of William Hornaday , the zoologist who described it. Today, the name Kermode is pronounced as / k ər ˈ m oʊ d i / kər- MOH -dee differing from the pronunciation of the Kermode surname, which originates on the Isle of Man ( / ˈ k ɜːr m oʊ d / KUR -mohd ). White Kermode bears are not albinos , as they still have pigmented skin and eyes. Rather,
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