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发表于 2009-6-15 00:15:52
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转贴 Photog's time with Spirit Bear 'unique'
转贴 Photog's time with Spirit Bear 'unique'
-------引自 http://www.theprovince.com/Enter ... /1667852/story.html
A wildlife photographer who recently released photos of a Spirit Bear sighting from B.C.'s central coast had "quite a unique experience," according to an advocate who's been following the bears for 13 years.
The all-white Spirit Bears descend from Black Bears due to double recessive genes, said Simon Jackson, the founder and chairman of the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition.
"It's an incredibly rare sight," said Jackson.
And good timing, too: the Spirit Bear image of half killer whale and half bear adapted from First Nation legend, named Miga, is one of the mascots of the 2010 Olympic Games.
The bear is also the subject of Jackson's executive-produced upcoming animated feature "The Spirit Bear," to be released later next year with partial proceeds to local communities.
Steve Kazlowski, a 39-year-old freelance wildlife photographer based in Seattle, went searching for the rare species back in 2006.
Kazlowski and a friend went to a remote island near the First Nations community of Klemtu and spent about a week camping in the pouring rain.
They made a "camera blind" out of twigs and brush to hide behind in case of a sighting, but had "pretty much given up" before a sow, or female bear, sauntered up to their campsite to do some fishing.
"All of a sudden we looked up and here comes this big white sow and she's got two black cubs in tow," he said.
It was getting dark and Kazlowski, who's been photographing wildlife for 16 years, decided to pack up his stuff and try his luck in the morning.
When he went outside to dry his tent with the coal-burning stove, Kazlowski discovered the sow was directly behind him.
"She came barreling over the brush, popping her jaw, hair up," he said.
He grabbed some rocks for protection, but it turns out he didn't need them.
"Once she realized I was a person, she kind of calmed down, and I just kind of stayed still and then she walked away and took off with her cubs."
But in the morning, the Spirit Bear returned. "After a day or two, she knew we were there and she started letting us position ourselves [to take photos]," he said.
"That went on and off for a week and a half or so."
Kazlowski took up to a thousand photos that week.
"It almost seemed like she knew she was special," he said.
Jackson, 26, found the Spirit Bear Youth Coalition when he was 13.
"It's absolutely a critical species not only in terms of its beauty and symbolism for the province of British Columbia, but [the Spirit Bear] also helps maintain the global ecosystem," he said.
There are only about 200 to 400 Spirit Bears in the world, he said, with most of them concentrated on Princess Royal Island.
The bears' newfound fame is a double-edged sword, he warned, if the attention disrupts their natural habitat.
"It's always a risk that you kill the bears with kindness," said Jackson, noting that Spirit Bear sightings should be organized by local First Nations communities with knowledgeable guides and not undertaken on one's own.
As for the Spirit Bears' significance, Kazlowski says that legend has it that when the creator pulled the glaciers back, he wanted the people to remember that ice used to be there and was an important part of history.
He made some bears white to make people "remember where life can from."
For more information on Spirit Bears visit www.spiritbearyouth.org. Steve Kazlowski's photos can be viewed at www.lefteyepro.com
lstone@theprovince.com
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Spirit Bear images were captured by Steve Kazlowski.
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