Slashdot Mirror
First Ever Wild Grizzly/Polar Hybrid Shot
tavilach writes "Jim Martell has a license to hunt polar bears, but when his latest kill had "white fur [that] was spotted brown and it had the long claws and slightly humped back of a grizzly," officials seized the body in order to conduct DNA tests. These tests confirm that the dead bear had a polar bear mother and grizzly father, the first documented grizzly-polar hybrid in the wild. This was lucky for Jim, who was facing a fine and jail time for possibly killing a grizzly. Scientists who would have liked to study the bear are not so lucky."
Now we'll never know what kind of mystical skills and powers it had.
But how does it taste?
"If the two types of bear can mate and produce fertile offspring, then
they are really the same species."
Nah, different species can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. Look up "ring species" for examples where A can breed with B, and B can breed with C but C cannot breed with A.
Mostly this reflects the fact that the term "species" is a fairly arbitrary distinction that goes back before our understanding of evolution.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
If the two types of bear can mate and produce fertile offspring, then
they are really the same species.
That's really an older view of things. There are many animals that are concidered different species even though a fertile rare hybrid appears. The most obvious is wolves, coyotes and dogs. But also different species of abalone, cicklids(sp?) are other examples. Biologists have a hard time defining on what exactly makes a species, because horizontal gene transfer among what are considered species happens surprisingly often.
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
genetic tests showed the bear had a polar bear for a mother and a grizzly bear for a father.
Those grizzlys... always going after the blondes.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
So it's apparently legal to shoot polar bears in Canada, despite the fact that they're considered one of the animals facing increasing threats in the future from withdrawing sea ice?
And it's also legal to shoot a half-grizzly, even though shooting grizzlies is illegal?
What a waste of a magnificent (and apparently rare) animal. I'm probably one of the more pro-hunting folk around here; I grew up eating deer and gamebirds shot by my father, and have a bunch of respect for people who know how to turn a shotgun shell or rifle bullet into dinner. But these wealthy big-game trophy hunters, who look for rare and wondrous animals only to shoot them and turn them into rugs or wall ornaments, make me sick.
Imagine if some guy wandering around the Antarctic finds a meteorite with evidence of Martian life in it, and whacks it with a sledgehammer...
This was previously discussed at another forum yesterday, and the general consensus was what a complete travesty it is that this animal was killed by a "trophy hunter."
Interestingly, the people who were most offended were other hunters. Not trophy hunters, but those who hunt legally as a means to control herd populations and to feed their families. In my experince, standard hunters aren't so inexperienced and quick to shoot at anything that moves than a normal hunter. I mean you've got to get somethingto show for your 45K right?
And now, because this "hunter" didn't know the value of this animal, it is dead before it could be studied further and / or protected.
"The television is the retina of the mind's eye" - Videodrome
I wonder what it drops? And if it's something good, when does it pop next?
Note to self...really gotta take a break from MMORPGs
Some details for your consideration:
Inuit communities are allowed a certain number of polar bear tags each season, based in part on the idea of sustainable yield (how sustainable I can't say). This is in recognition of the importance of the polar bear hunt in their traditional culture.
Each community decides how to allot their tags. Some places use all of the tags internally for subsistence hunting. Others sell a portion of them to big-game hunters, which brings a lot of money to the community. This is arguably a more efficient form of subsistence hunting: What's a better use of the resource, a) killing a bear and eating it or b)selling the chance to shoot a bear to a rich hunter and then spending the tens of thousands of dollars raised on feeding your community? Tags for outsiders are only available through the Inuit communities.
And yes, it's true that polar bears are dangerous, and anyone working in the arctic needs to carry a rifle in case of emergency encounters. Government research projects are extremely touchy about this (my wife's been up a few times) - spotting a bear anywhere near a camp results in the camp being moved rather than risk the death of a bear or a human. However, the suggestion by another poster that the hunt is necessary to keep communities safe is bullshit. Which is not to say nuisance bears won't get killed, but it certainly won't be part of the hunting tag system.
yp.
It's a Polizzly Bizzle fo' shizzle, my nizzle.
Nowhere in the article does it say anyone wanted to study the carcass. They've crossbred polar and grizzly bears in captivity before, I'm sure they have all the data they want from those experiments.
You've got it exactly backwards. Sure, no one is interested in studying the carcass, because they've done all they need on captive hybrids. But I bet there are plenty of scientists who would love to get the chance to radio-tag a live one and follow it around in the wild for a while. Does it behave like a grizzly or a polar bear? Does it get along with others of either type of bear? And many more questions.
A dead bear tells no tales that haven't already been heard. A living bear would be intensely interesting to the scientific community.
That might explain how a grizzly got to the region, but few can explain how it managed to get along with a polar bear long enough to mate.
Clearly none of the people speculating spend much time drinking. You can mate anything with enough Tequila.
Then why not make the areas where polar bears live off-limits to humans?
Because then the bears breed and expand their population, which expands their territory and suddenly the bears are threatening our enclaves again.
I believe that the limit is something around a hundred bears a year. That's why you get the rich 'big game hunters' as they're the only ones who can afford the resulting high fees.
If an animal species is being driven to extintcion due to habitat encroachment by humans, then it's only reasonable that humans stay off that species' natural habitat.
They're not endangered, though their population density is tiny. And their 'natural' habitat is anywhere there's food, minus areas where more warm climate adapted bears take the territory.
IMHO, a polar bear is justified in killing a human because it's in his nature, but a human is supposed to be "rational", which means, logical reasoning should prevail over his instinct to kill.
We haven't wiped out the Polar Bears entirely, nor that many other large species recently in the northern hemisphere. I'd tend to say we are controlling it, and death/predation is both part of nature and man.
I don't read AC A human right
Scientists who would have liked to study the bear are not so lucky.
Maybe the scientists who would have liked to study a grizzly/polar mix should go to a zoo, where they already exist, as mentioned in the article. I think that would be a lot easier.
.
Who needs Wikipedia when you've got this sort of expertise?
" animal of the week today is the polar bear which is pretty much the king of the animal kingdom because it is a cross of the best bits of a tiger, a shark and a Hulk Hogan. if you think that you can imagine how strong a polar bear is then think again because you are wrong. it is stronger than that and it is probably stronger than your next guess. we are talking about an animal that can leg press over 500kg and curl 200kg with ease. pretty much the only thing that it cant do is squat thrusts but they are gay anyway. polar bears have a furry bellend to protect it from the cold."
Animal Of The Week