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GTG
Was lost but now am found
Joined: 30 Dec 2002
Posts: 2387
Location: Peoria, Arizona, originally from Rocket City, USA
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 Posted: 5/11/2006, 7:50 pm Post subject: Kill is first confirmed case of grizzly-polar bear hybrid |
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A big woah for this one!
From tonight's Arizona Republic -
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0511hybridbear11-ON.html
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Kill is first confirmed case of grizzly-polar bear hybrid
Beth Duff-Brown
Associated Press
May. 11, 2006 03:15 PM
TORONTO - A DNA test has confirmed what zoologists, big-game hunters and aboriginal trackers in the far northern reaches of Canada have dreamed of for years: the first documented case of a grizzly-polar bear roaming in the wilds.
Roger Kuptana, an Inuit tracker from the Northwest Territories, suspected the American hunter he was guiding had shot a hybrid bear last month after noticing its white fur was spotted brown and it had the long claws and slightly humped back of a grizzly.
Territorial officials seized the creature and a DNA test from Wildlife Genetics International, a lab in British Columbia, has confirmed that the hybrid was born of a polar mother and grizzly father.
"It's something we've all known was theoretically possible because their habitats overlap a little bit and their breeding seasons overlap a little bit," said Ian Stirling, a polar bear biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service in Edmonton. "It's the first time it's known to have happened in the wild."
He said the first person to realize something was different about the bear - shot and killed on the southern end of Banks Island in the Beaufort Sea - was Kuptana, the guide.
"These guides know their animals and they recognized that there were a number of things that didn't look quite right for a polar bear," Stirling said. The bear's eyes were ringed with black, its face was slightly indented, it had a mild hump to its back and long claws.
Stirling said polar bears and grizzlies have been successfully paired in zoos and that their offspring are fertile, but there has been no documented case in the wilds.
Kuptana, a guide from Sachs Harbour in the Northwest Territories, was tracking with Idaho big-game hunter Jim Martell, who had paid $50,000 for a license to hunt polar bears.
The DNA results were good news for the 65-year-old hunter, who was facing a possible $1,000 fine and up to a year in jail for shooting a a grizzly. The Northwest Territories Environment and Natural Resources Department now intends to return the bear to Martell.
"It will be quite a trophy," Martell told the National Post last week, before the DNA results were in. He returned to Yellowknife for another hunt, this time for a grizzly bear. He told the newspaper he has dubbed his creature "polargrizz."
Stirling said others in his office have been tossing in jest what to call the hybrid: a "pizzly" or a "grolar bear." One colleague said they ought to call it "nanulak," combining the Inuit names for polar bear - "nanuk" - and grizzly bear, which is "aklak."
"He has a remarkable trophy from his perspective and from the perspective of this whole fraternity of people who like to go big-game hunting for trophies," said Stirling. When asked how he felt about the rare beast being killed, he would only say that Canada's polar bear hunt - which runs from December through the end of May - is done on a sustainable basis.
Colin Adjun, a wildlife officer in Kugluktuk on the northern mainland in western Nunavut, said he's heard stories before about an oddly colored bear cavorting with polars.
"It was a light chocolate color along with a couple of polar bears," Adjun said. Though people have talked about the possibility of a mix, "it hasn't happened in our area," he said.
Three years ago, a research team spotted a grizzly on uninhabited Melville Island, about 350 kilometers north of where Martell bagged his crossbreed.
Polar bear and grizzly territory also overlap in the Western Arctic around the Beaufort Sea, where the occasional grizzly is known to head onto the sea ice looking for food after emerging from hibernation. Some grizzly bears make it over the ice all the way to Banks Island and Victoria Island, where they have been spotted and shot before.
That might explain how a grizzly got to the region, but few can explain how it managed to get along with a polar bear mate long enough to produce offspring.
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AP correspondent Keith Ridler in Boise bureau and The Canadian Press contributed to this story.
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Hmmm......
GTG
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mike
What box?
Joined: 30 Dec 2002
Posts: 3134
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Davis2001R6
Joined: 12 Dec 2003
Posts: 5591
Location: Italy
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| Posted: 5/11/2006, 10:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Heard that on the radio this morning. Don't think I would want to mess with that cute little baby polor from the coca-cola commercials no more. |
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cactuscat
Joined: 04 Jan 2003
Posts: 459
Location: Phoenix
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| Posted: 5/12/2006, 10:08 am Post subject: |
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Too bad it's DEAD! 
Sorry, had to say it. |
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Daddee
I once was a slug.
Joined: 04 Jan 2003
Posts: 2815
Location: Mesa, AZ
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| Posted: 5/12/2006, 11:02 am Post subject: |
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Yes - the find is interesting, but you just know that the hunter is saying "I was the first one EVER to kill a critter like that!"
It would have been far more interesting to see what effects a hybrid like that would have on the populaiton at large. The fact that I find most amusing is that as a hybrid the offspring are still fertile (which you can't accomplish by breeding, say, a tiger and a lion - that just gets you a sterile offspring).
That brings into question the process for defining a species - and how often does cross breeding like that with other similar species happen?
For further fun, there are growing concerns that the Polar Bear population is threatened or endangered due to habitat loss from global warming (an argument for another time) - I bet nobody though that they might adapt to new environmental constraints by breeding with more terrestrialy oriented mamals.
Just a wild story all around.
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IGO
Joined: 08 Feb 2005
Posts: 4144
Location: Las Vegas
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| Posted: 5/12/2006, 7:09 pm Post subject: |
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Oh look, a highly unique one-of-a-kind species. Hurry, bag that son-of-a....
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azhiker96
Joined: 05 Jan 2003
Posts: 1419
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| Posted: 5/12/2006, 9:27 pm Post subject: |
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Polar bear cubs are usually born in pairs. Maybe there's a naturalist who'll pick up on this opportunity and check out the bears in that area. I bet funding would be easy to find.
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azhiker96
Joined: 05 Jan 2003
Posts: 1419
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| Posted: 5/12/2006, 9:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Daddee wrote: |
It would have been far more interesting to see what effects a hybrid like that would have on the population at large. |
This is a good point especially since the bears may be put on the endangered species list. I can imagine a debate already on whether the interbreeding is endangering the polar bears more or if this is a way for the bears to adapt to the changing environment.
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