One of Canada's rarest birds was found at Johnson's Crossing on New Year's Day, though it died shortly afterward.

Had the ivory gull lived, bird watchers from across North America would have flocked to the Yukon just to get a look at it, Bruce Bennett, a wildlife viewing biologist with the Department of Environment, said in an interview this morning.

Bennett said not only is the bird rare by virtue of its small numbers and its international endangered status, but it normally lives in the high Arctic on Canada's Ellesmere Island, in northern Greenland and Siberia.

Even if birders wanted to, he said, it would be very difficult and most expensive to visit the bird's natural habitat.

Bennett said when his wife, Randi, lived in Nome, Alaska years ago, an ivory gull showed up and stayed in the community for a bit.

For days, he said, bus-loads of people arrived to see the bird, which is so unlike any other gull that it's the only species in its scientific category.

This is only the fourth recorded ivory gull seen in the Yukon. There was a pair seen on the Arctic coast in the 1970s, and an immature gull lived at Tagish Narrows in 1999 for about a week until it died.

Bennett noted there was an ivory gull in Atlin, B.C. for about a week in 1987 until it died, and there is a record of one seen in Dease Lake in 1889.

The birds have been recorded as far south as the Washington coast, and as far inland in B.C. as Penticton, where one was seen in 1897.

Ivory gulls had been listed as a species of special concern but were elevated to endangered last year.

Approximately 2,400 ivory gulls breed in Canada, Bennett said.

All in all, he emphasized, seeing an ivory gull in the Yukon is a rare occasion.

'The only thing I can think of is that he must have got caught up with another flock of birds that were coming down south and that convinced him to say, OK, I will go along with these guys.''

If he was travelling with a herd of swans, for instance, the large birds may have kept him fed with the food off the lake beds they would likely churn up with their large paddle-like feet, he said.

'They live on the polar ice sheet and follow the leads just like the whales and polar bears,' he said. 'The bears look for seals and these birds look for Arctic cod and little shrimp and small fish that live on the edge of the ice sheet.

'They are specially designed to live in the high Arctic.'

Bennett said the bird does not look like your ordinary gull. It is short and squat in stature, designed to minimize heat loss. It would likely stand about six inches tall, compared to the 14 or 15 inches of the standard sea gull, he said.

The immature ivory gulls have black legs and specks of black through their feathers but the adult ivory is the only gull in the world that is pure white.

This ivory gull was found by Shane Parker of Whitehorse as he was travelling along the Alaska Highway.

In the short section between the Teslin River Bridge and the turnoff into the Johnson's Crossing campground, Parker saw the gull on the ground next to the road, its legs stretched out behind it rather than tucked beneath in a normal perch position.

Bennett said Parker told him the bird attempted to fly as he approached but could not.

Parker thought some type of bird of prey might have knocked down the gull, but he saw no other birds in the immediate area nor in the open water below the bridge.

'He knew that any gull in the winter would be unique,' Bennett said of Parker's roadside curiousity. 'And when he looked at it, he thought there was something strange about this gull.

'It does not look like a gull,' he said. 'It looks more like a tern than a gull.'

Nestled in a blanket on the passenger side of the vehicle, the ivory gull died before Parker reached Marsh Lake.

Bennett said when he sent out e-mails to notify others of the sighting, those who misunderstood and believed the bird was still alive and hanging out at Johnson's Crossing had already started packing the vehicle for a road trip.

The gull's carcass is being preserved at the Department of Environment.

What will happen to it ultimately has not been determined yet, Bennett said.

He said it's been suggested that to do anything with it locally may require a mountain of permits, given that it's classified as a migratory bird even though it is not and it's on the endangered list.

It's been suggested the gull be turned over to the Canadian Wildlife Service with a recommendation that it be given to one of the larger museums, namely the Canadian Museum of Nature, the country's Ottawa-based largest museum of wildlife.

'Because it is really significant,' Bennett said. 'They can do the DNA and they can do the necropsy and everything else.'