Hello all,



A great source for information on Pacific NW mammals is the Burke Museum's web page on WA mammals



http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/collections/mammalogy/mamwash/



I've spent some time in the Queen Charlottes and the west coast of B.C. where I saw several Spirit Bears. However, when I was there I was told about another bear seldom heard of called the Blue Bear which is an apparent steely-blue morph of a Grizzly Bear as opposed to the blue morph of the Black Bear (sometimes called the Glacier Bear). I found a book on the subject that has some nice photos of a blue-grey Grizzly Bear taken by the author and is a good read. I couldn't find the images online but it is pretty amazing. I've also included a link to the book for those who are interested.



http://www.curledup.com/bluebear.htm


Cheers,



Tyler


Tyler L. Hicks


Ph.D. Student
Washington State University Vancouver

E-mail: tyler_hicks at wsu.edu
Web Page: http://thingswithwings.org

"We were certainly uncertain. At least, I'm pretty sure I am." - Modest Mouse






Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 12:36:10 -0800
From: jon_leland at yahoo.com
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: [Tweeters] Bears and other fauna





This is a fascinating discussion regarding these Kermode Bears. I notice that some of you post trip reports that includes all the wildlife you encountered, not just birds. I often come across mammals in the field, and would love to track them as I do birds. But so far I have not found any great field guides specific to the NW or websites such as birdweb and ebird.


I assume that birding gets most of the attention because they are so much more common and easier to observe than other wildlife, but for me it feels incomplete to focus exclusively on the birds. I'd love any advice you're willing to share regarding your favorite resources for the rest of the animal kingdom.

Oh, and I think I saw 7 species of wild mammals (deer, raccoon, vole, rabbit, sea lion, seal, and porpoise) in the field this weekend... but my mammal ID is pretty weak.

Regards
Jon Leland
Seattle WA



------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2010 13:17:54 -0800
From: Abu Anka <guylmonty at hotmail.com>
Subject: [Tweeters] RE: The KERMODE or called SPIRIT Bear in
Canada!!!!!
To: bird wa <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Message-ID: <BLU148-W298706F1E2DA55681B042DA9600 at phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"



Hello Ruth,



Although the Kermode bears reach their greatest concentrations on Princess Royal Island, they can be found with some regularity on the adjacent mainland for about 100 kms to the north, south, and east. Although the frequency with which this color morph occurs drops off sharply as one moves away this immediate area of the BC Coast, I have seen them on several occasions as far away as the highway north of Kitwanga, which is about 300 kms NE of Princess Royal Island.



They are a spectacular animal.



thanks,



Guy L. Monty

Parksville, Vancouver Island, BC


_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail: Free, trusted and rich email service.
http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/196390708/direct/01/