DNA Test Confirms Hybrid Bear in the Wild

In this undated photo provided by the Canadian Wildlife Service, hunter Jim Martell, left, is seen with a hybrid bear he shot while on a hunting expedition on Banks Island, Northwest Territory, Canada. According to Dr. Ian Stirling, researcher for the CWS, genetic tests showed the bear had a polar bear for a mother and a grizzly bear for a father. Roger Kuptana, center, right, was the guide on the expedition. The other men are unidentified. (AP Photo/Canadian Wildlife Service) (AP)

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.

Colin Adjun, a wildlife officer in Kugluktuk on the northern mainland in western Nunavut, said he's heard stories about an oddly colored bear cavorting with polars.

"It was a light chocolate color along with a couple of polar bears," Adjun said. Though people have talked about the possibility of a mix, "it hasn't happened in our area," he said.

Three years ago, a research team spotted a grizzly on uninhabited Melville Island, 215 miles north of where Martell bagged his crossbreed.

Polar bear and grizzly territories 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. Some grizzly bears make it over the ice all the way to Banks Island and Victoria Island, where they have been spotted and shot.

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.

David Paetkau, a geneticist with Wildlife Genetics, said the hybrid bear could be an anomaly. He said that if the two types of bear continue to mate, it would water down the breeds. He also said that scientists worry melting ice caps in the Arctic could soon have a detrimental impact on polar bears, which thrive in an icy environment.

According to the National Wildlife Federation, there are about 1,200 grizzlies in the lower 48 United States, 32,000 in Alaska, and 25,000 in Canada. Stirling said there are some 24,000 polar bears in Canada, Greenland, Russia and Alaska. _____

AP correspondent Keith Ridler in Boise, Idaho, contributed to this story.