{"id":1315,"date":"2024-04-23T22:37:04","date_gmt":"2024-04-23T22:37:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amycondra.com\/?p=1315"},"modified":"2024-04-23T22:37:04","modified_gmt":"2024-04-23T22:37:04","slug":"coats-of-many-colors-woodford-to-speak-on-alaskas-bears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amycondra.com\/?p=1315","title":{"rendered":"Coats of many colors: Woodford to speak on Alaska’s bears"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article was originally published in The Juneau Empire<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Amy Condra<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you coax out the crowds on a chilly Friday evening in Juneau?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laurie Craig, an interpreter at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center, cites one topic that tends to pack the house: Animals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI call it \u2018charismatic fauna,\u2019\u201d said Craig, who has been organizing the center\u2019s Fireside Lectures for seven years. \u201cFurry animals bring in more visitors than anything else!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week\u2019s scheduled presentation, \u201cAlaskan Bears: Coats of Many Colors,\u201d is aimed at easing the curiosity of those among us, and there are clearly many, who want to know more about these animals that share our world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Juneau we are surrounded by bears, says Riley Woodford, a writer and editor for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game\u2019s Division of Wildlife Conservation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe live in one of the best places in the worlds for bears,\u201d said Woodford, who will be speaking on the topic Friday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woodford says his interest in the coats and colors of local bears was sparked by a comment from a researcher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was really casual,\u201d said Woodford. \u201cA biologist, Kevin White, was doing some work with bears north of town, and said to me, \u2018Hey, check out these white cubs! There\u2019s a black mother bear with three cubs, and two of them are white!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woodford, who worked as a field biologist before becoming a writer, said he started looking into the topic after White sent him some photographs of the bears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most black bears are black, says Woodford, and most brown bears are brown. Those are the classic colors, he adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut in Southeast Alaska we have rules \u2014 and then we have the exception to the rules,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A black bear\u2019s fur will probably be black \u2014 but it just might be brown, cinnamon, blonde or white.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or, a black bear may have a bluish-gray hue \u2014 a rare variety known as a glacier bear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A brown bear\u2019s fur can also range in color from blonde to nearly black.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woodford says the way in which bears are classified is ironic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey are called black or brown bears, but there is so much variety in how they look that they really can\u2019t be defined by their color.\u201d What causes these variations?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woodford says a black bear with a white cub, for example, can probably credit genetics for the shake-up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat could be caused be a mutation, or a couple of recessive genes in a perfect storm,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But not all color changes are genetic \u2014 other factors can also have an effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBears can change color as they grow up,\u201d said Woodford, much like a towheaded child can grow into a dark-haired adult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bears can also change color, he says, as a result of rubbing themselves against trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA brown bear can look red because it has rubbed off the guard hairs, or top coat, and what you see is the wooly undercoat,\u201d Woodford said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A brown bear\u2019s typically lighter guard hairs against a darker undercoat is what creates the animal\u2019s grizzled appearance \u2014 and explains why brown bears are often referred to as grizzly bears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are fortunate to be living among these brown bears, or grizzlies, said Woodford, who points to nearby Admiralty Island as having one of the highest densities of brown bears in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to the possible disappearance of grizzly bears beyond our state\u2019s borders, in 1948 conservationist Aldo Leopold wrote the following observation: \u201cRelegating grizzlies to Alaska is about like relegating happiness to heaven; one may never get there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are already here, and gaining a better appreciation for the bears that live around us, and a greater sense of how varied they can be, is one of the messages Woodford hopes people take away from Friday night\u2019s presentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think the people who will come Friday are interested in bears,\u201d said Woodford, \u201cand want the best for them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article was originally published in The Juneau Empire. by Amy Condra How do you coax out the crowds on a chilly Friday evening in Juneau? Laurie Craig, an interpreter at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center, cites one topic that tends to pack the house: Animals. \u201cI call it \u2018charismatic fauna,\u2019\u201d said Craig, who has… Continue reading Coats of many colors: Woodford to speak on Alaska’s bears<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":913,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,8,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alaska","category-bears","category-fish-and-wildlife","category-juneau","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amycondra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amycondra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amycondra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amycondra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amycondra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1315"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amycondra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1316,"href":"https:\/\/amycondra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315\/revisions\/1316"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amycondra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amycondra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amycondra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amycondra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}