"Pizzly bear" found--on wrong side of rifle

This has always been my gratest fear, that global warming would encourage grizzly and polar bears to hook up. Most hybrids are bigger than either parent (like ligers) and the last thing we need is twenty foot tall bear. Stephen Colbert will go ballistic:)

And the idea that some old fart pays $45k to kill and animal for no reason, what a marroon.

I personally have not the slightest inclination to hunt and kill an animal ... but in the hunter's defense, the animal would look much like a polar bear from a distance. However the after-shoot posturing seems a bit much when a bit a humility was called for. Now if the bear had a gun too, then that's different.

Oh, and its Yellowknife, not Yellowstone.

I agree it probably looked like a polar bear from a distance--but polar bear hunting doesn't exactly seem very kosher to me, either. And corrected the place, thanks.

I agree Tara. I would only go so far as to suggest he didn't knowingly shoot a pizzly. Not that you suggested he did that, but that's the extent of my defense for him. The reason hunters are willing to pay such a steep price is that polar bears are considered the most dangerous animal to hunt, owing in part to the fact they are reportedly one of the few animals in the world that will actively stalk and kill humans if given a chance. Grizzlies are less dangerous and black bears lesser still.

There have been many reports here recently of grizzlies (and other temperate species) foraging further north, due to global warming. The Arctic is especially sensitive in this regard. But even worse is that as the ice caps shrink, polar bears find it harder to hunt for seals, their main prey, while at the same time remaining connected to their land based breeding areas. I fear that in the lifetime of our children, these animals will go extinct in the wild. That would be a real shame.

I prefer the term "grizlar." "Pizzly" sounds like someone angling for a Grammy nomination.

There are white black bears (how's that for an oxymoron!) that live out in British Columbia called spirit bears or ghost bears. Tell me that that cub is not the cutest possible thing, next to Beyonce. Those are pretty cool names, if already taken.

P.S. Spirit bears are not albinos. Thier colouration is a recessive genetic trait.

"Pizzly"? Sounds like the adjective form of "pizzle", which is a bull's penis. So: a bear that resembles a bull's penis. Good thing it's dead or you'd have insulted a big animal with a Grizzly's bad mood and Polar Bear's mad stalking skills!

As they say here in Canada*, We must preserve the wildlife for future generations, so our children will have something to hunt and stuff.

*At least on the Royal Canadian Air Farce

From the linked article:
"Stirling said polar bears and grizzlies have been successfully paired in zoos and that their offspring are fertile, but there has been no documented case in the wild."

So, IF this bear was fertile, then polar bears and grizzlies are no longer separate species!?

I know this is going to sound corny, because it is, but I saw Peter Jackson's King Kong last night and that's the first thing I thought about when I read this story. Yeah, yeah, it's a stupid movie with a computer generated giant ape but it still speaks to something that I just don't understand, namely, the impulse to kill or destroy something rare and unique or to be proud and excited for doing so after the fact, regardless of personal notoriety.

Karl,

The polar bear/grizzly crosses highlight the inadequacies of the Biological Species Concept. Polars and brown bears are good species by every reasonable ecological, morphological, behavioral, etc. criterion. Any species definition that doesn't recognize them as separate species is a species definition that is recognizing something that isn't a "species" in terms of interactions in the world of organisms.