Kermode bear OK after being hit on B.C. highway: conservation service

SMITHERS, B.C. – The white Kermode bear is usually a rare sight in British Columbia, but a motorist on Highway 37 in the province’s northwest couldn’t avoid hitting the animal.

A caller to the B.C. Conservation Officer Service hotline reported that a vehicle struck a Kermode near Smithers and that it wasn’t possible to determine the bear’s condition.

The conservation service sent an officer to the area, and a mother bear was spotted meandering along the highway with her two black cubs.

A video of all three bears has been posted on the service’s Facebook site, and it shows them moving about, eating, and apparently without any injuries.

The Kermode is a rare subspecies of the black bear and a recessive gene gives some of the animals a white coat though they are not albino or related to the polar bear.

The Kermode or so-called spirit bear is B.C.’s provincial mammal and is found on the central and north coast.