Touching Spirit Bear: Spirit Bear

The Great Bear Rainforest is not easy to get to. It's a wilderness the size of Switzerland. This remote corner of Canada is the spirit bear -- "Canada's panda" -- black bears with white fur because of a genetic variation. There are less than 500 of them on Earth.

Article: Spirit Bear: In a moss-draped rain forest in British Columbia, towering red cedars live a thousand years, and black bears are born with white fur.

Less than 400 of these rare bears exist, and their largest numbers are found in the Great Bear Rainforest.

Spirit bears are rare black bears with white or creamy fur, brown eyes, dark nose pads, and nearly white claws. They are not polar bears or albinos. Maybe 400 exist in the world.

The spirit bear is a unique subspecies of the North American black bear in which approximately one in every 10 bears is white or cream-coloured.

British Columbia boasts the largest temperate rainforest park in the world, the Great Bear Rainforest. Discover some of the oldest and largest trees on Earth, plus unique wildlife like the white 'Spirit' bear. Understand how managers strive to balance logging, mining, and conservation in this rainforest. (3:02)