Is white-coloured bear spotted in Alberta a spirit bear?

A white-coloured bear caught on a trail cam near Calgary has sparked interest on social media.

Pictures of the light-coloured bruin crossing the camera’s path were posted on Twitter and Facebook, raising questions about so-called spirit bears making an appearance east of the Rockies.

But it is not a spirit bear, the white bears that inhabit a set of islands in British Columbia’s coastal Great Bear Rain Forest.

Rather, it’s a rather uncommon white-phase black bear.

Black bears - named for the most common colouring encountered by those who gave them their name – come in a range of colours from black to white and all shades in between, according to WildsafeBC.

Only about one in 10 spirit bears are actually white and the proportion is far less in other subspecies, but they do occur. The white fur is caused by a recessive gene inherited by both parents.

The North American Bear Centre says non-black black bears can also bleach in the sun to nearly blond fur that is shed the following summer.

Outside of B.C., only about one in a million black bears is white, according to the North American Bear Centre.

One such bear appeared in a wildlife sanctuary near Orr, Minn., in 1997. The bruin, dubbed Halo, became a worldwide sensation.

Two years later, Minnesota passed a regulation protecting all white-phased black bears from hunting.

In 2013, a white black bear that had been repeatedly feeding on garbage near the town of Elkford, B.C., was rescued by the Calgary Zoo when she continued to return to the town, despite being relocated.

Manuka now has a permanent home at the zoo.

White bear cubs have also been reported near Beausejour, Man., about 500 kilometres north of Orr.