All Terrain Thinking

A Compendium of things I think are Important

Generally Speaking, Think on this...

Hunter bags a polar bear – well, at least half of one

TORONTO – A DNA test has confirmed what zoologists, 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 in the wild.

Roger Kuptana, an Inuit tracker from the Northwest Territories, suspected that the American hunter he was guiding had shot a hybrid bear 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 bear's body, and a DNA test from Wildlife Genetics International, a lab in British Columbia, confirmed that the hybrid was born of a polar bear 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 biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service in Edmonton, Alberta. “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 last month 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, and it had a mild hump to its back and long claws.

Stirling said that polar bears and grizzlies have been successfully paired in zoos and that their offspring are fertile, but there had been no documented case in the wild.

Kuptana, a guide from Sachs Harbour in the Northwest Territories, was tracking with Idaho big-game hunter Jim Martell, who paid $45,450 for a license to hunt polar bears.

The DNA results were good news for the 65-year-old hunter, who was facing a possible $909 fine and up to a year in jail for shooting 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, even 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 the creature “polargrizz.”

Stirling said his colleagues have come up with a few names of their own for the hybrid: a “pizzly” or a “grolar bear.” One colleague suggested calling 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, the biologist would only say that Canada's polar bear hunt – which runs from December through the end of May – is done on a sustainable basis.

 

Wild find: Half grizzly, half polar bear

Hunter bags what expert 'never thought would happen' in wild

Hunter Jim Martell, left, and others pose with the bear he shot on Banks Island in Canada's Northwest Territory. DNA tests later showed the bear had a polar bear for a mother and a grizzly bear for a father.

IQALUIT, Nunavut - Northern hunters, scientists and people with vivid imaginations have discussed the possibility for years.

But Roger Kuptana, a guide from Canada’s Sachs Harbor was the first to suspect it had actually happened when he proposed that a strange-looking bear shot last month by an American sports hunter might be half polar bear, half grizzly.

Officials seized the creature after noticing its white fur was scattered with brown patches and that it had the long claws and humped back of a grizzly. Now a DNA test has confirmed that it is indeed a hybrid — possibly the first documented in the wild.

"We've known it's possible, but actually most of us never thought it would happen," said Ian Stirling, a polar bear biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service in Edmonton.

Polar bears and grizzlies have been successfully paired in zoos before — Stirling could not speculate why — and their offspring are fertile.

Breeding seasons for the two species overlap, though polar bear gets started slightly earlier.

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.

Grizzlies hunting seals?

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. These bears will scavenge seals left over by polar bears.

"And some hunters have told me that they think sometimes the grizzly bears actually hunt seals, which I'm quite sure they could do," Stirling said.

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.

Colin Adjun, a wildlife officer in Nunavut, said he's heard stories before about an oddly colored bear cavorting with polar bears. "It was a light chocolate color along with a couple of polar bears," Adjun said.

And though people have talked about the possibility of a mix, "it hasn't happened in our area," he said.

While the latest find is a surprise, it is not necessarily another sign of climate change, said John England, a geologist who was with the team that spotted the earlier grizzly.

"If we want evidence for climate change, we don't have to go to an isolated occurrence of a grizzly bear somewhere," said England, who holds a northern research chair on environmental change in the Arctic.

"The satellite imagery showing sea ice reduction over the last 30 years is proof positive of very dramatic changes in the northern hemisphere."

No fine for hunter

The DNA results were good news for Martell, who had paid $50,000 for guides and a permit to hunt polar bear. Before the tests came back, the 65-year-old hunter was facing the possibility of a $1,000 fine and up to a year in jail for shooting a bear for which he had no permit — as well as the disappointment of an expensive hunting trip with no trophy.

The local natural resources department now plans to return the bear to the hunter.

Note: This is a composite of many sources

Prior | Tell us what you think | Next

Add to Your Social Bookmarks: Del.icio.us Digg Furl Reddit Simpy Spurl Y! MyWeb - StumbleUpon