Grizzly Bear/Polar Bear Hybrids
The Grizzly bear is now regarded by most taxonomists as a variety of brown bear, Ursus arctos horribilis.
- Clinton Hart Merriam, taxonomist of grizzly bears, described an animal killed in 1864 at Rendezvous Lake, Barren Grounds, Canada as "buffy whitish" with a golden brown muzzle. This is considered to be a natural hybrid between a grizzly bear and polar bear.
On April 16, 2006 a polar bear of unusual appearance was shot by a sports hunter on Banks Island in the Northwest Territories. DNA testing released May 11, 2006 proved the kill was a Grizzly/Polar Bear hybrid. This is thought to be the first recorded case of interbreeding in the wild. The bear was proven to have a polar mother and a grizzly father. The DNA testing also spared the hunter the C$1000 fine for killing a grizzly bear, and the risk of being imprisoned for up to a year. The hunter had bought a license to hunt polar bears; he did not have a license to hunt grizzly at that time.
The animal had dark rings around its eyes, similar to a panda's but not as wide. It also had remarkably long claws, a slight hump on its back, brown spots in its white coat, and a slightly indented face — the nasal "stop" between the eyes which polar bears lack. The guide leading the hunt, Roger Kuptana of Sachs Harbour in the Northwest Territories, was the first to note the oddities. Several names were suggested for this specimen. The Idaho hunter who killed it, Jim Martell, suggested polargrizz. The biologists of the Canadian Wildlife Service suggested grolar or pizzly, as well as nanulak, an elision of the Inuit nanuk (polar bear) and aklak (grizzly or brown bear). Both grolar and pizzly were used by the Canadian Broadcast Corporation in widely-distributed stories.
Presently, though the mating seasons overlap, the polar bear's season begins slightly earlier than the grizzly bear's. A blog columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer suggested that more hybrids may be seen as global warming progresses and alters normal mating periods. The Canadian Wildlife Service noted that grizzly-polar hybrids born of zoo matings have proven fertile.
Grizzly bears have been sighted in what is usually polar bear territory in the Western Arctic near the Beaufort Sea, Banks Island, Victoria Island, and Melville Island. A "light chocolate colored" bear, possibly a hybrid, is reported to have been seen with polar bears near Kugluktuk in western Nunavut.
Read more about this topic: Ursid Hybrid
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“if you ever, ever, dare
To stop a grizzly bear,
You will never meet another grizzly bear.”
—Mary Austin (1868–1934)
“if you ever, ever, dare
To stop a grizzly bear,
You will never meet another grizzly bear.”
—Mary Austin (1868–1934)
“The true charm of pedestrianism does not lie in the walking, or in the scenery, but in the talking. The walking is good to time the movement of the tongue by, and to keep the blood and the brain stirred up and active; the scenery and the woodsy smells are good to bear in upon a man an unconscious and unobtrusive charm and solace to eye and soul and sense; but the supreme pleasure comes from the talk.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Professor Fate: My apologies. There’s a polar bear in our car.”
—Arthur Ross. Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon)