Rare 'glacier bears' with bluish fur may face grim future
Tania Lewis is one of the world’s experts on glacier bears, but even she has only seen these mysterious animals a handful of times. As a wildlife biologist at Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in Alaska, Lewis studies the park’s small, little-seen population of what are genetically black bears, but whose coats range from mostly black with a silvery fringe to entirely bluish gray.
“To have a rare color … that’s not found anywhere on Earth—there’s a story there,” Lewis says.
In their latest research, Lewis and colleagues have offered new clues into why glacier bears are so unusual. The research also has revealed potential challenges to the bears’ future as temperatures rise due to global climate change.
The team identified 10 black bear populations in and around the national park, four of which contained glacier bears. The glacier bears were separated from each other by wide fjords, glacier-capped mountains, and barren ice fields. Yakutak glacier bears, for instance, live more than 60 miles from their closest glacier bear neighbors, the Glacier Bay West bears.
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