Canada is home to roughly 20,000 grizzly bears that can range in colour from jet black to light blond, with the rarest colour being white. A video recently posted on TikTok, and shared on other social media platforms, shares the story of an unlucky all-white grizzly bear named "Joey" who was mistaken for a polar bear by an animal protection organization and sent to the Arctic – twice. The story outlined in the video is false. There is no evidence "Joey" the bear exists and the bear that is featured in the video appears to be a different species of bear, not a rare white grizzly bear.
The minute-long was posted on a TikTok user's account on June 23. It features a compilation of clips showing what appears to be various bears in different habitats and unidentified people to lay out the story.
It claims an animal protection organization tranquilized Joey and sent him to the Arctic where the bear couldn't find food and was bullied by local polar bears. It goes on to say experts in the Arctic noticed Joey was an albino grizzly bear and sent him back to the "North American forest." The video says this happened a second time with Joey.
The TikTok video has more than 13 million views as of publication. It was shared on , formerly known as Twitter, where it has been reposted 36,000 times and has more than seven million views.
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Several clips in the video that identify a lightly coloured bear as Joey the albino grizzly bear appears to show a different species of bear called the spirit bear, or Kermode bear.
The bear in the video "looks like a Kermode bear and not a grizzly bear," said Holly Reisner, co-executive director of North Shore Black Bear Society, in an email.
Spirit bears are a subspecies of black bears that appear white or cream in colour. The video never specifies where Joey is located, only saying he's found in the non-existent "North American forest." can be found mostly living in the Great Bear Rainforest, a protected area along the North and Central Coast regions in British Columbia.
Reisner added the organization has not heard a case of a bear being mistaken for a polar bear and being shipped to the Arctic happening in the area.
A B.C. wildlife organization also has not heard of the story before.
"Pure fictional content for the purpose of social media clicks," said Gabriela De Romeri, communications co-ordinator with WildSafeBC.
A misidentification like the one suggested in the video would never occur by wildlife experts, De Romeri explained. She said bear species are very distinct and in some cases the relocation of food-conditioned bears can be used to reduce human-wildlife conflict, but it is seldom successful.
Original sources
The video uses a compilation of short clips. While ·¬ÇÑÉçÇø was unable to verify the original source of every clip used, some were found to be from a car advertisement, an unrelated news story out of France and an environmental documentary.
Two clips, one showing a white bear in a forest and the second showing a white bear walking down a road as a semi-truck passes by, come from a . The video says passersby thought the bear was heading south for food.
Another ones show an unidentified individual try to get in the back of a truck that is housing a caged bear. The clips were originally posted Oct. 15, 2015 on by the Yorkshire Wildlife Park in England. The video documented the transfer of a polar bear named Nissan from a zoo in Moscow to the wildlife park. A from ABC News on that portion of the video shows a group of migrants were attempting to cross into the United Kingdom from France, but were caught after climbing into the truck with the bear.
Some other clips representing the animal protection organization that first sent Joey to the Arctic appear to be taken from a documentary on bears. A titled "Meet the spirit bears of Canada's Great Bear Rainforest" posted on YouTube on Aug. 4, 2020 has some of the clips shown in the TikTok video.
Other examples
Iterations of this story appeared online in and .
A similar depicting the story of Joey was posted on YouTube on Aug. 31, 2023. In that version, scientists dyed Joey's fur brown so he wouldn't be mistaken for a polar bear.
At the end of it, the narrator says "This story may not be totally true! But it was definitely funny."
Sources
TikTok video can be found (, )
X post can be found ()
Animal Facts: Kermode (spirit) bear, ()
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