Posted on 05/11/2006 6:57:25 AM PDT by VadeRetro
IQALUIT, Nunavut - Northern hunters, scientists and people with vivid imaginations have discussed the possibility for years.
But Roger Kuptana, an Inuvialuit guide from Sachs Harbour, Northwest Territories, 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.
Territorial 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.
Only one
Obviously, you don't. But people who don't know the Scriptures love strawman arguments.
Please do not use this as a precedent for hunting down the Bush/Clinton love child.
I grew up in Appalachia where deer season shuts down businesses. I've never been able to grasp the "challenge" of sitting in a stand for 4 hours drinking beer, then blowing a hole in the lungs of a walking herbivore (who is afraid of your shadow).
These are the grown up versions of the kid who who finds a turtle and bashes in its shell with a rock, because he can.
The only phenomenon that has ever made me think Freud may have been right about all that phallic insecurity business.
I would have SWORN that Lindsey was Ann Margret's granddaughter when I first saw her in Drama Queen. The resemblance is amazing.
>>>I grew up in Appalachia where deer season shuts down businesses. I've never been able to grasp the "challenge" of sitting in a stand for 4 hours drinking beer, then blowing a hole in the lungs of a walking herbivore (who is afraid of your shadow). >>>
For sheer trophy, I agree with you. For food, deer meat is healthier than beef (another herbivore noone seems to mind killing) and quite delicious once you learn how to process and cook it.
Awwwwwwwww. We just lost our 11-year-old Bengal to cancer. Wile E. was more Aby than Mau, that's for sure. Lots of Abyssinian traits. I got him from the creator of the breed, is it Jean Mills? Something like that. One of her huge 2nd generation mixes from the Asian leopard cat had some feathers sticking out of the chain link at about 5 feet off the ground in its huge outdoor pen. She said, "Oh, no, he caught a bird again... in flight."
re: Interracial dating among bears.
"Once you've gone brown, you'll stay around" is what the big bears say.
Well, at least we don't have to ask the polar bear's mother what she did on her summer vacation.
agreed. used to share an office with a guy that would come in on Mondays and tell us graphically what happend to the deer when his 12 guage slug would hit the deer between the eyes.
Lucky shot, miss, or just getting off on splatting deer brains all over a tree?
I got NO PROBLEM with eating what you kill or defending one's self.
But, these trophy hunting psychos need to be called out for what they are.
I was not aware that deer hunting was not considered "sport".
That's very interesting ... especially the part about the males being infertile, females fertile. That's really on the border of being the same species.
yeh, like playing poker is a 'sport'.
get real.
I laugh at the pollizly bear...I lift my leg and f#rt in it's general direction...
get real.
Then please tell me how bear hunting is considered "sport"? Because the prey can eat you?
Look...to me there's no difference between hunting deer or bear or elephants.
Especially when one party has weapons and the other doesn't.
Well, at least, you're sorry.
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