The bear's habitat is potentially under threat from the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines, whose planned route passes near the Great Bear Rainforest.
In 2009, researchers compared the foraging success of black bears with the white-coated spirit bear, a morphed subspecies of the black bear.
In it they stated that an oil spill "could destroy the extremely rare spirit bear – a bear with white fur that is as beautiful as the Chinese panda bear".
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