I've just had a call from CBC radio and the bear shot a couple of weeks ago has been confirmed to be a cross. Amazingly, common sense ruled and the bureaucrats have decided to return the hide and skull to the hunter, with no charges. At present, he's somewhere in the NWT on a grizzly hunt and they're trying to locate him with the news. ~Arctic~

Any pics. would like to see this.

Arctic ----- It would be good if you told us what in the hell you are talking about.

I believe he is talking about a bear that was recently shot that was a cross between a grizz and a polor bear. Thats about all I know about it.

If it is arguably considered a grizzly that should make it easier to get into the US

$50grand sounds like a real bargain for a unique specimen like that....

AllanD

This will help www.cbc.ca/north/story/nor-dna-pizzly.html

I think its ridiculous that they confiscated the skin etc and were considering charging the hunter. Typical Beaurocrat crap.

Frankly if it were me and they did that they'd better have taken proper care of the hide... if I got it back and the hair
started falling out I'd make it a point to replace the bear hide with the hides of several conservation officers.

Either figuratively or literally depending on the dammage
they did via their negligence.

as for:
"It is considered nearly impossible for the two species to mate, since polar bears mate on the ice, while grizzlies mate on land."

A)Obviously not.
B)Female bears are "receptive" to the males only at certain times of the year, do they really think Male bears are impotent at all other times?

Who here thinks a Male bear finding a female bear "in heat"
is going to care what color the female is or care what month of the year it is before doing what male bears do to female bears in heat?

Polar bears mate on the Ice? if a female polar bear can walk on the ice couldn't a grizzly follow her scent trail?

From what I know about polar bear females they accept males on a "first come first served basis", if they didn't they wouldn't be able to reproduce.

The reverse would be true of a Male polar bear encountered a female grizzly on land the male bear would simply do what male bears do to females in heat.
there'd be a scent trigger that she was in heat and suddenly that male would have only one thing on his
mind.... making baby bears.

So we had brown bears and white bears, now we have beige bears... with the Grizzlies moving further north and "warming" keeping the polar bears on shore longer
more Grizzly/polar encounters are going to happen
this mixed breed bear probably won't be the last one.

But I'd be curious to know what'll happen when a male and female "Pizzly" or "Groler" mate....

Supposedly there is only ~250,000 years of evolutional
divergence between the two species...

AllanD

It's not that surprising that the two species could successfully interbreed in that the polar bear is believed to have evolved from the grizzly (or from the ancient ancestor of the two modern species).

My money would be on the mother being a grizzly and the sire a polar bear. It would seem much more difficult for a hybrid to make a living in the very specialzed way (primarily aquatic) that the highly adapted polar bear mother would have to teach its young. On the other hand, the special adaptations of a half polar bear cub would not seem to be nearly such a handicap in making a living the way a grizzly does.

Those LONG grizzly claws would certainly be no handicap when "fishing" for seals.... or trying to get traction
on the ice...

Though I do wonder about the hybred bear's ability to utilize sunlight.... Polar bear fur is not actually "white"
but rather transparent (like uncooked chinese "celophane noodles") to allow sunlight to reach and be absorbed by the bears BLACK skin...

The different bears may be "nurtured" differently so they have differently programmed "software", but they are "hardwired" in their hard wired programming to be adaptable oppertunists.

So either way I doubt that any combination of characteristics from the two species could be any kind of a real "handicap".

I wouldn't want to face any combination of those charteristics with nothing but a sharp rock on the end of a heavy stick.

AllanD

Living here, I have a bit of a different perspective on this. Grizzlies have been identified in the Arctic islands, and there was a bit of a kerfluffle a few years back when a polar bear biologist darted one (his permit only covered polar bears) and took DNA to see if there was any overlap.
Grizzlies here come in all colors and I've seen them in the normal darkers colors, but also orange, blond, and platinum white. The rarest was a platinum sow with 3 platinum cubs. And I believe there still some evolution or adaptation to specific areas occuring here. For instance, I know of one area that has numerous pure blond or "straw grass" wolverine that usually can't be located in the grasses because of their color. On top of that, these blond wolverine are massive, often 4 feet long, much bigger than the normal, and are often mistaken for bear cubs.
There is still a lot of adaptation going on in the North, and this is just one case of it being identified. Who would expect populations of moose on the Arctic coast, but they're there and survive well!
~Arctic~

Ma' nature is continually finding ways to surprise us, and overcome whatever obstacles pop up. Always has, and always will - it's an ongoing thing.

As for the bear -- we had a thread about it in the political forum a while back, here:

https://forums.accuratereloading.com/eve/forums/a/tp.../199107174#199107174

And here was my post back then predicting this thing was a real hybrid. I'm actually glad to see it's possible. Given their close relation, I wouldn't be surprised if a Polar and Grizzly mix produced a sexually viable offspring. But I guess we won't know in this case. And I agree with the prior poster, I hope the science types took good care of the hide.

quote:

Posted Apr 28, 11:29 AM
Well, just a discussion on where they breed may not be sufficient ... grizzlies can swim too ya know,


... and I don't know about bears, but I've seen a male rotweiler his owner had chained to a steel cable suspended between 2 BURIED, 5-gallon buckets filled with cement happily trotting down the road dragging those two cement-filled 5-gallon buckets, on his way to see a lady friend in heat half a mile away.

Never underestimate the power of females in season. Even if they're out on a floating block of ice somewhere. Grizzlies may (generally) mate on land, and polar bears may (generally) mate on a block of ice, and cross-species mating may be MIGHTY rare in nature ... but ma' nature's a powerful motivator in the animal kingdom.

I was just curious if a polar bear has a hump. I know grizzlies do, and in my understanding, that should be a quickly visible indicator as to what you're looking at.

I think that whole situation is pretty cool.
A couple things come to mind.
1. I'm glad the bureaucrat's didn't screw up the whole situation.
2. Getting to see evolution at work is a good learning experience.
3. Males of any species will go to an awful lot of trouble to have sex and to continue the lineage.