The bear that was shot in the NWT in 2005 has been confirmed as a hybrid, and National Geographic did a tv show on it.

Just got done watching it.

It was actually very middle of the road on hunting, good job Nat Geo!

Link? Pic? Anything???

Good God all you'd have to do now, is put wings on it and it'd take over the world!

Nat Geo has been VERY unbiased, maybe even pro hunting. Kudos to them!

Are you telling me you don't have google?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...%93polar_bear_hybrid

Take a look at the links at the bottom.

Yes they have been almost pro hunting. They said they would have never known this was possible if the hunter hadn't taken him.

And of course:
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Wildlife officials seized the bear after noticing its white fur was interspersed with brown patches. It also had long claws, a concave facial profile, and a humped back, which are characteristic of a grizzly.
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I hope the hunter was able to get his trophy back.

Amidst much controversy, the bear has since been returned to Martell.

Looks like he did get his trophy back!

It's a done deal, he used a Taxidermist in Yellowknife, and I think Boyd Warner was the Booking agent.

The bear is at the guys house in Idaho, the lab ruled it was a hybrid of a arctos boar and a maritimus sow.

I saw the full mount at SCI in Reno in 2007... not very much brown on it.

Frans

I am still trying to figure out what I think of the animal.

I have a feeling as ice melts up North, this is going to be happening alot more.

One interesting note, is that the bear had not been only been eating seals, but it also had been eating small animals. I think it had the ahtletic abilities of the brown. As polar bears are kind of limited in what they can do, based on their speed.

I was surprised that in the areas in Alaska where they come into contact w/one another, the brown bears chase off the larger polars.

Yes they did not once paint the hunter in a negative light. Well done NatGeo...now NGC how about putting on more nature shows and less junk!

This show was on again today. I thought it was pretty interesting. It was good to see the NWT officials use common sense and drop charges against the hunter. Actually, I was dissapointed that they charged him in the first place.

I am sort of surprised the animal survived 6 years. I watched the program as well. It was raised by a polar bear mother so it was taught to hunt seals. I watched another show or it may have been the same one showing some of the differences between the species of bears and one was the claws. A grizzlies claws are long and fairly straight and are good for digging. A polars are hooked somewhat for grabbing seals. It would appear from the pics that this animals claws more reflect a grizzlies (I may be wrong). That might make it difficult for it to catch seals thus surviving in the environment it was taught to live in.
I am sure the hunter and guide assumed it was a polar as there was very little brown on the animal. I am a big hunter but in this case it would have been great if the animal was identified, tagged and and monitored over its life.

I have not seen the NG show on this but it is a well known fact that the barren ground grizzlies are being seen further and further north in the Arctic islands than they have ever been seen before. Robins are being seen in northern villages where they have never been seen before.

Things are changing and nature will adapt.........it won't necessarily stay the same of course and it may well be that polar bears are confined to places further north as the ice retreats, but nature and the species will adapt through modification.

The other interesting thing that we have been seeing is wandering polar bears showing up inland in places they have never been seen before either.

I read somehwere the other day that Polar bears are adapting to having swin further between Ice Flows by having the baby PB's on the back of the mother and therefore out of the cold water (on the basis they don't have the fur / fat to keep warm on long swims.

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