Despite being targeted by hunters for their distinctive coats, glacier bears accounted for 0.4 percent of the black bears legally harvested in southeastern Alaska from 1990 to 2018, according to the study. No other population estimates exist.

Glacier bears are mostly found in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve as well as Tongass National Forest in Alaska, with occasional sightings in the capital city of Juneau. Their fur color ranges from silvery blue to grey, and tends to be darker closer to their bodies, terminating in white tips.

An icon of wilderness, Glacier is home to large numbers of both black and grizzly bears.

Although glacier bears are protected from legal harvest in the portion of their range encompassed by Glacier Bay National Park, they are legally hunted in the large majority of their range.

The glacier bear (Ursus americanus emmonsii), sometimes referred to as the “blue bear”, is a subspecies of American black bear with silver-blue or gray hair endemic to Southeast Alaska.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday it no longer plans to propose removing the population of grizzly bears in and around Glacier National Park from the endangered species list this year.

As you’re probably already aware, Glacier National Park is bear country, and is home to both black bears and grizzly bears. For those wishing to venture into Glacier’s backcountry, one of the first questions that comes to mind is how to have a safe trip while hiking with bears.

600 black bears
As a result of this project, and after collecting and analyzing a staggering 34,000 hair samples, the latest estimates hover around 300 grizzly bears and 600 black bears, but refinements are constantly improving the accuracy of the estimate.

A new report from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service indicates that Yellowstone’s grizzly bears are more dangerous than those in Glacier National Park, despite Glacier’s larger bear population.

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The area along the Continental Divide that includes Glacier National Park has seen 11 fatal bear attacks in the last 50 years, including Tuesday’s mauling, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesperson Joe Szuszwalak said. Since 2001, there were 20 reported injuries from bears that required the victim to be hospitalized.

Black bears in Glacier Bay eat a wide variety of plant and animal foods. They often graze on shoreline grasses and sedges, dandelions, wild celery, cow parsnip , and other beach and meadow plants. They use their long claws to dig up plants and roots and to pick ripened berries in the summer.

Definition of glacier bear. : a small bluish gray bear of the glacier region of southern Alaska that is probably a color variant of the black bear although sometimes considered a distinct species ( Ursus emmonsi or Euarctos emmonsi)

The Alaska glaciers are parts of a network of mountain glaciers that collectively only hold 1 percent of the Earth’s glacial ice volume. Most of it is found in the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland .