Osher Lifelong Learning Institute
In Search of the Spirit Bear
Speaker
Nigella Hillgarth, PhD
Coordinator
Steve Clarey
This talk is about an expedition to photograph the white Spirit Bears in a remote and beautiful rainforest. The Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia is one of the largest intact temperate rainforests in the world, stretching along Canada’s rugged Pacific coast. This lush, remote region is home to an incredible diversity of wildlife, including grizzly bears, wolves, and the rare white “spirit bear.” Rich in both ecological and cultural significance, it has been stewarded for thousands of years by Indigenous communities.
Speaker Bio
Presenter: Nigella Hillgarth, PhD is an Affiliate Professor in the Biology Department at the University of Washington, Seattle. She was previously the Executive Director of the Birch Aquarium at UC San Diego, the outreach arm of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and was responsible for developing the first major exhibit on climate change in the US focusing on oceans. Nigella was born in Ireland and received her bachelor’s degree in Zoology from Oxford University in the UK as well as a PhD in Evolutionary Biology. She is a noted wildlife photographer who will share impressions and photographs from a her trip to the Great Bear Rainforest.