Colored Bears in Alaska

State wildlife biologist Kevin White was flying a moose survey north of Juneau when he and the helicopter pilot spotted a group of strange animals.

“I thought, ‘Is that a brown bear with wolves?” White said. “I was thrown off by the color. It was these practically white bear cubs.”

The group of four bears included a sow and three cubs. One cub is distinctly more ‘normal’ looking. White guessed the cubs are all about a year old – probably born last spring.

“I don’t think they are albino,” White said. “They aren’t grey like light-phase black bears or glacier bears. They’re super blonde brown bears.” One of the cubs in the unusual bear family looks more typically brown. Like a litter of puppies, bear siblings may look different from one another. And like tow-headed children, blondes who turn brunette as they grow up, it’s possible the bears may change.
This light-colored black bear has been roaming the Skagway area since it was a cub.
Glacier bears are black bears with a bluish-grey color, but this Skagway bear is even lighter than the usual glacier bear color. A white color phase of the black bear, called the Kermode bear, is found in western British Columbia. This white color phase is most common on Princess Royal and Gribbel islands, and accounts for about 10 percent of the bears. A litter of Kermode bears may also include black-colored bears. The area around Juneau seems to have an abundance of non-black black bears, said Juneau Area Biologist Neil Barten. He’s seen the bluish-grey glacier bears, brown black bears and one bear he described as red. It was the color of a golden retriever,” he said. “I got a good look at it several times.”

A black bear with a distinct stripe of longer, reddish-brown hair running the length of its back, like a Mohawk haircut, has been frequenting the viewing area at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center this summer.