Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The discovery of a rare wild Grolar bear, a fertile Grizzly / Polar bear hybrid, is being treated as a terrifying sign of global warming in the Arctic.
Grolar bears: Climate change could be behind grizzly-polar bear hybrid, scientists say
An unusual bear shot by a hunter days ago in Nunavut, a territory in northern Canada, is thought by experts to be a “grolar” or “pizzly” bear.
But some scientists say the two bear species are breeding more often because climate change is causing them to cross paths.
Chris Servheen, a bear biologist and Adjunct Associate Research Professor at the University of Montana, said sightings of this hybrid bear species have been very rare in the past.
“But they seem to be more common now,” he said.
Mr Servheen said not very much was known about the grolar and pizzly bears, as little contact had yet to be made between them and humans.
Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-19/grolar-pizzly-bears-climate-change-creating-hybrids/7428354
My question: why aren’t greens celebrating this find, as evidence that Polar bears are capable of rapidly changing their phenotype, in response to radical changes to the polar climate?
Hybridisation is a common form of adaption in the natural world, which allows the rapid spread of important survival traits amongst diverse populations. Modern humans carry the genetic fingerprint of frequent hybridisation, including evidence of likely cross breeding with Neanderthals. Some scientists even claim hybridisation was not only important, but essential to the rise of modern humans.
The Hybrid Origin of “Modern” Humans
Recent genomic research has shown that hybridization between substantially diverged lineages is the rule, not the exception, in human evolution. However, the importance of hybridization in shaping the genotype and phenotype of Homo sapiens remains debated. Here we argue that current evidence for hybridization in human evolution suggests not only that it was important, but that it was an essential creative force in the emergence of our variable, adaptable species. We then extend this argument to a reappraisal of the archaeological record, proposing that the exchange of cultural information between divergent groups may have facilitated the emergence of cultural innovation. We discuss the implications of this Divergence and Hybridization Model for considering the taxonomy of our lineage.
Read more: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11692-015-9348-1
Evidence of occasional fertile hybridisation of Polar Bears is simply evidence that Polar Bears are more adaptable than environmentalists generally accept. If the arctic ever warms to such an extent, purebred Polar Bears are no longer ecologically viable, they would simply be replaced with hybrids, or even near purebred Grizzlies. And when Arctic conditions cooled again, creating strong selection pressure for lighter fur, “Polar Bears” would quickly re-emerge from the diverse ursine gene pool.
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Green theory rejects change, unless it is change to how things were. On a recent walk in the city I saw a notice saying that the river environment, traditionally very English with poplars, oaks and grass, is to be converted to how things were in Gondwanaland. I looked at this for a long time, thinking, “You can’t be serious”. Not just before modernisation, or the arrival of people here. Gondwanaland.
They might have trouble sourcing the plants and animals.
I mean, like, this whole “pizzly”, worry-wart deal the hive has goin’ could not be simpler to explain. I mean, like, for all the phoney-baloney lip-service the hive’s pie-holes pay to “diversity”, the good-comrades are, behind all their faux color-blind, high-falutin’, flim-flam rhetoric, just your standard-issue, group-think, plain ol’ vanilla defenders of white-bear privilege, horrified that their “lily-white” bruin favorites are gettin’ caught up in the horrors of race-mixing’ miscegenation with not so “lily white” black bears and brown bears.
Don’t believe me? Well, you don’t have to be Nate Silver, to smoke this one out:
Goggle: “white bears new york times” and “black bears new york times” and “brown bears new york times”:
-white bears 6,970,000 results
-black bears 6,140,000 results
-brown bears 6,140,000 results
See what I mean? And note that the number of results is identical for brown and black bears–an obvious quota system goin’ on here, I think we all must agree. I mean, like, the color-conscious mentality at work at the nation’s so-called “newspaper of record” just makes me want to BARF!!! And I think Google should include a “trigger warning” notification any time a “New York Times” result appears in response to a Google search along with a panic-button feature that, if pushed, will create an instant “safe space” for the internet user.
Jeez…and here I thought we had all moved on from this sort of “dog-whistle”, segregationist thinkin’, but I guess the hive’s brazen-hypocrite, carbon-piggie eco-flakes didn’t get the word, or sumpin’.
Last time I said I wanted a piece of Amber, so I could work on the DNA, my wife hit me…
Been there.
You should have gone to a jeweler and buy one without telling her.
Oh, never mind, same problem …
Actually much bigger when she finds out …
so that’s why Amber is such a common stripper moniker.
LOL (I’ve got to stop drinking coffee at my desk).
Oh boy!
They’ll have to sanctify Cenchrus ciliaris!
It is indeed an interesting paradox that Greens are strictly against any changes in the natural realm but are very fervent zealots for social, economic and gender changes in the human sphere. What does this paradox tell us about their psychology?
What does this tell us about their psychology?
Get back to the Old Testament and again read the story of the Tower of Babel.
All of this is simply Man attempting to replace God.
Painful though it is to defend Greens, I’m not sure there is a paradox. Greens want Man to return to his/her pre-Lapsarian state too, which they interpret as socialism essentially.
Thus they believe tat both nature and Man have been spoiled and ruined by the evils of capitalism and consumerism.
Are you saying that Greens don’t believe in evolution???
@MarkW
Well, most of them will tell you that they believe in evolution of course, at least in the long run.
But their extreme eagerness to save every single species and any tiny biosphere, or in other words, their extreme conservatism for current conditions in nature displays a strange contrast to their intense quest to change the conditions of the current state of human societies and traditions.
Polar gears and grizzlies are going to have to share toilet facilities with “grolar bears”.
Oh Wait, they a;ready do.
See what happens when toilet facilities are shared!
Gentle Tramp,
“It is indeed an interesting paradox that Greens are strictly against any changes in the natural realm but are very fervent zealots for social, economic and gender changes in the human sphere. What does this paradox tell us about their psychology?”
It tells me it’s not real, as in, a relatively small number of actors/manipulators are displaying various attitudes/positions, and the mass media/propaganda system is presenting them as “role models”, which some imitate without much critical thought.
In short, virtually no one actually holds strong views along the contradictory lines you draw, it’s a synthetic, make-believe psychology, I believe. It entices and ensnares many narcissistic folks, because they (naturally) do not critically examine their own beliefs/words/actions.
You mean, change to how they _think_ things were. In some fantasy Edenic past that never actually existed. Really, most of the tenets of the hardcore Green movement are just that old-time religion, repackaged for a secular age.
Old time religion – not retold. They are trying to parallel and re-create God, and God’s work.
Just as many of us scientists are striving to do. I know I will step on toes to suggest this.
–The final step is to re-create the planet – this is my explanation for the idea of colonizing Mars, an idea in the scientific realm as far back as the 50s.
It is more that greens view nature as a static never changing image. Such as they would see on a post card. How they first viewed some piece of nature is how that piece of nature should and must remain or something is wrong. They have a serious problem with the fact that nature is a dynamic constantly changing system never the same twice.
What the hell is Gondwanaland? Like a section of Panjea or something?
“Pangea”,,and yes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Laurasia-Gondwana.png
It was what is now South Amaerica, Antarctica, Arabia, India, and Africa during the Triassic, 200 M. years ago.
Funny, I don’t think that England was in Gondwanaland, it was in Laurasia, in the Northern Hemisphere.
Humans are hybrids and the pure strains may re-emerge ?
I am a Crom myself, and always considered the greens to be Nandys
They already have — they’re running for POTUS.
Neanderthal DNA was sequenced by a German research institute from a heel bone. Though fragmented, it was enough to indicate that all populations contain on average of about 3-4% Neanderthal genes, but obviously only populations outside Africa.
As for the polar bears, they’re thriving (even without a touch of the Grizzly brush).
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/polar-bears-going-extinct-yawn/
Pointman
But some populations have more than others. Some have very little, not just the original African “Remainers”.
Trite but true, and we all don’t have the same 3-4% either. It’s been calculated that in our gene pool, we carry in total approximately 20% of their genome. Current African populations contain no Neanderthal genes, since the latter speciated from an earlier wave out of Africa into the northern climes of Eurasia and therefore there was no possibility to interbreed.
Pointman
But Pointman, the article had a highly scientific study on this new phenomena,
========================
“Chris Servheen, a bear biologist and Adjunct Associate Research Professor at the University of Montana, said sightings of this hybrid bear species have been very rare in the past.
“But they seem to be more common now,” he said.
=========================
See!
Are the bears engaging in GMO?
No, just unprotected sex. Romantic nights under the auroras, and that kinda hot stranger can look really appealing!
OH NO!!! The “white bears” are breeding with the “brown bears” and it must be stopped!!!! Which culture will the cubs identify with most? (Equal rights for ALL bears I say! Let them “love” whom they choose to love! Get out of the bear bedrooms! ) muhuhahahahahaha
Well we know they can use whatever restroom they identify with.
… the river environment, traditionally very English with poplars, oaks and grass, is to be converted to how things were in Gondwanaland….
Why stop at Gondwanaland?
Let’s take it up to several hundred degrees, cover it with lava, give it a red-hot CO2 atmosphere, and occasionally throw rocks into it at supersonic speeds.
That’s how it was in the Hadean…
I saw a tv programme a couple of years back about a cross-bred bear that had been shot by a hunter and his Inuit guide. Because their license was only for Polar bears, they both ended up being prosecuted by the authorities for killing the bear without the necessary permissions.
Bloke down the pub,
Actually, the *threat* in that case was that the animal shot was a grizzly, when their tag was for a polar bear. Ultimately, the hunters were safe because there are no rules about hybrids – they are fair game for anyone.
I covered this issue yesterday soon after a CBC article came out, if you want all the background. I was sad to see, Eric, that the story had legs – but of course it would, the press loves any polar bear incident that can be blamed on climate change.
Notice that these are not the usual “experts” being interviewed for these stories – were the polar bear specialists unavailable or just unwilling to go along with the blame-game?
Grizzlies are not moving north into the Hudson Bay area – they are moving SOUTH from Nunavut because there is so many of them. Essentially, they may be recovering range they occupied centuries ago. Their movements are not a sign of climate change but a normal result of a recovering population.
https://polarbearscience.com/2016/05/18/another-alleged-grizzly-polar-bear-hybrid-shot-but-its-not-a-sign-of-climate-change/
As far as I can tell, whether or not this animal was a hybrid (or a second-generation hybrid) has not been confirmed by DNA testing. Some aspects of it make me wonder…
So far, DNA tests on all wild-caught hybrids have been crosses between an male grizzly and a female polar bear. One animal (a female) was a second generation cross (she was the result of a mating between a male grizzly and a female grizzly/polar bear cross).
So we know for sure that female offspring are fertile but there is no evidence yet that males are fertile (they may be but we can’t be sure). This is often the case with hybrids – females usually fertile, males infertile.
Dr. Susan Crockford, zoologist
Is it their gender or their sex that is of issue here?
Yes, Haldane’s Rule
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haldane%27s_rule
But all it takes is repeated back crossings and out crossings with the fertile offspring to generate a stable cross. The idea of a “species barrier” really is more like “a species strong suggestion”.
Since Polar Bears evolved from grizzlies it is by definition the case that they interbread more in the past. That it still happens, though rare, just says the speciation isn’t complete yet.
Canids widely hybridize even in the wild. Bears are related to canids. No surprize that a category with weak speciation barriers has hybrids…
Thanks Dr. Susan
That makes perfect, logical, sense. Population growth induces geographic drift from being territorial.
Thanks for responding here Dr Crockford.
As soon as I see a polar bear story here I scroll for your input and skip reading the post
Very interesting, thanks.
We should learn to be more sensitive.
Maybe one of this bear’s parents chose to identify with a species other than the one to which it was born and fell in lust.
Looking at all the possibilities that we ‘hupersons’ have thought up regarding personal identity, why should we begrudge other species to engage in a little unconventionality.
Asp,
See… I knew nothing good would come from letting anyone use any restroom they want.
The grizzly should have stuck to the woods and the polar bear should have stuck with the ice. I suppose next my dogs will start wanting to use the litter box.
Who knows where this will all wind up?
Watch out for your dog looking longingly at wolves, or that Coyote eying their shapely profile:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canid_hybrid
I don’t even want to think about the dog / golden jackel crosses…
Dogs and cats living together? Egads!
EM Smith
Properly raised wolf-dogs make wonderful farm dogs. Best dog I ever had the pleasure of feeding(spayed female). Listening to her sing with her wild brotheren at night was amazing. Super guard dog.
Coy-dogs are probably more common that folks realize, especially with so many urban coyotes these days. (the four legged kind, I mean.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Whether the bear shot was a hybrid or a light coloured grizzly will be determined when the DNA is done.
White/blonde Grizzly Bears:
http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.view_article&articles_id=314
I remember seeing cinamon bears and light coloured bears many times out hunting with my dad as teenager in British Columbia. I never considered these bears rare or odd.
People read an MSM story and without experience in the appropriate wild places, they simply accept it as gospel. Yet a few minutes on the Internet tells you that genetics is complex and animals with white fur are not always albinos. There are several non-albino white moose in the Prince George/Smithers area of BC. Black noses, black eyes, but white coats.
Life is amazing.
Right on, sister. You can be whatever you wanna be. T’aint no one gonna tell you what you have to be. You wanna be a cat, you be a cat.
What’s next? Grizzlies and Polar bears sharing the same bathroom?
Cats and dogs living together!
They better stay out of NC then..
When the coyotes around here start lookin’ half-Labradoodle, I’ll know it’s happening . . .
All kidding aside, are these hybrids fertile?
Apparently, found several sources which claim they are.
I’ve read that they’re the same basic species as grizzlies, just adapted to life in the Great White North. Arctic foxes and rabbits change their coat colors seasonally from white to brown; the bears might start doing the same. I’m sure they’re more concerned with people shooting them than their climate adaptations.
You have to consider that the difference between a grizzly, a polar bear, and a grolar is similar to the difference between a soccer player, an NFL quarterback, and an NBA point guard. In other words, not much. A polar bear has white fur, a longer neck, and a mother that taught it to swim. In other words they are slight variations of one species.
So where does a rugby player get to be in your analogy? Obviously way above the ‘NBA point guard’ (whatever she is). So a rugby player would be some animal we haven’t yet discovered which is a cross between an alligator and a lion?
Well, Polar Bears are evolving rapidly. Dentition has changed in just the last several millennia to be adapted to a pure carnivorous (i.e. seal) diet.
Of course, some people see the result as bad news, but it seems to me PBs can evolve some more or pick up old genes by hybridization. Or it’s going to turn colder and and cause everything grief.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/11/08/for-polar-bears-the-price-of-rapid-evolution-is-a-weaker-skull/
Of course you have to ask, if you cross an American with a Brit, would the child be fertile?
@Brian:
Yes, I am. Son hybridized with a Puerto Rican / Dutch hybrid, so third generation looks to be changing from hocky goalies to rugby / soccer cross types 🙂
Yes, at least some of them are. There is a reason they are both Ursus Arctos. They are just different subspecies (horribilis vs maritimus) because they can breed true.
Climate change is when there’s no Apartheid amongst bear populations.
Watch out, some special snowflakes at a university somewhere will start a club: Humans for Bear Apartheid. Better get a safe space ready.
Surely cross breeding usually gives rise to F1 hybrids that are infertile such as the horse and the donkey to give Mules. You cannot breed mules with mules. Mick G
From: Watts Up With That? To: mickgreenhough@yahoo.co.uk Sent: Thursday, 19 May 2016, 9:29 Subject: [New post] Greens Panic at Evidence of Polar Bear Climate Adaptability
Eric Worrall posted: “Guest essay by Eric WorrallThe discovery of a rare wild Grolar bear, a fertile Grizzly / Polar bear hybrid, is being treated as a terrifying sign of global warming in the Arctic. Grolar bears: Climate change could be behind grizzly-polar bear”
Bear hybrids are usually fertile, according to experiments; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursid_hybrid#Brown_bear.2Fpolar_bear_hybrids
Not necessarily, it depends on the genetic separation and one would assume grizzly and polar bears are closely related. That said, it is possible for individuals notionally of the same species that cannot interbreed. I recall reading (for the moment I can’t find the reference) a common species of bird distributed around the world has small genetic changes from area to area such that when the wheel comes full circle, the final “product” cannot interbreed with the original.
So what’s the problem – bears don’t care.
different to Wall Street :
up the bulls, down bear.
Good example of this in the US is the leopard frog, the one that kids used to dissect in biology class. They exist along the length of the Mississippi from Minnesota to New Orleans. While contiguous populations breed and produce fertile young as one moves southward, individuals from Minnesota and from Louisiana are not able to produce fertile young. One definition of species is a population of organisms capable of breeding and producing fertile young. Using just that definition, the entire population of frogs along the Mississippi are the same species but, are at the same time, NOT the same species. Life has a way of confounding our best efforts to categorize it.
Don
Yea, I have the same problem with women from New Jersey – I think it’s their accent.
In terms of a hybrid being fertile, I do recall hearing that two species which share a common immediate ancestor can successfully mate. Whether the offspring is fertile seemed to be a 50/50 proposition. Apparently such hybridisation can occur up to two million years after the initial separation/speciation.
Pointman
It isn’t that simple, and there are some crosses even further removed. Fertility is also more complex (see Haldane’s Rule link above).
BTW, crosses with different chromosome numbers can also be done. Goat Sheep hybrids are common, for example.
When you get into plants is is even more exotic. The Triangle of Wu describes the three original species that mutually cross (with doubling of chromosome counts) to make the 3 new “species” families that give us most of our cruciferous vegetables (cabbages, kales, turnips, mustards, etc).
There are a LOT more.. nature is happy to mix genes between species.
I read somewhere that the limit was closer to 75,000 years.
Hello EM Smith. Yes, I’m aware this is a complex area, if only because the science (read rules), is very new and far from settled. The relatively new techniques of gene analysis and the acceptance of the previously dismissed idea that hybridisation is a more active component of evolution and therefore speciation than thought in former years.
Hello MarkW. 75,000 years appears a bit short, while the 2 million number astonished me when I heard it. Perhaps someone out there with expertise in the area can advise?
Pointman
E.M.Smith,
I quickly skimmed your last sentence and read, “nature is happy to mix greens species” and a naturally provided salad crossed my mind.
Recall that horses and mules have different numbers of chromosomes; this is generally considered to account for the sterility of mules (and hinnies).
I don’t know if grizzlies and polar bears have the same number of chromosomes; if so, I would think that the F1 offspring would be fertile.
I have seen a mule and her colt… Dad was a horse in keeping with Haldane’s Rule. Mules are not all sterile and mule breeders usually “do in” any offspring as undesired off types.
Not in this case. That’s why Grizzlies and Polars are different subspecies of Ursus Arctos.
Nice one again Eric! Still working on my project but just got this up at the DB. It will give you an Idea of where I am going.
http://dailybail.com/home/renewable-energy-is-a-clean-green-criminal-machine.html
Great site John 🙂
Thanks! I have included Canadian issues as a group in Ontario were very helpful. The Canadian government seems to be less than forthcoming on several important aspects that need to be addressed. Same goes for the States and elsewhere.
Eric and John,
Something else that must concern the usual concerned people: heffalumps.
“Some scientists even claim hybridisation was not only important, but essential to the rise of modern humans.”
Since greens hate modern humans with a passion, it gives them another reason to be terrified of hybridisation. Imagine what despicable horrors the grolars will unleash on the world? Nuclear-powered SUVs?
Es tut Einem in der Seele weh ständig mit solchen Schwachheiten behelligt zu werden.
You’re confronted with people looking, behaving like grownups.Then they tell their storys about unicorns, antropomorphical smiling sun flowers and with equal antropomorphical smiling fluffy pink dolphins train their children sustainability. Because tomorrow earth’s resources are depleted infinetly.
Then you know that’s psychopaths, adressing the same expressions to sun flowers as to their children.
Hybrids? Well, strictly speaking Polar Bears and Brown Bears belong to the same species (being subspecies), since the can produce fertile “hybrid” offsprings. However the white and brown subspecies are very well adapted to their respective environments, so “hybrids” will likely have lower Darwinian fitness and become removed by natural selection, unless the Arctic environment alters to some kind of “hybrid” environment that suits them better..
I’ve long conjectured that when the deep greens wipe out humanity, (along with every ape and monkey down to the smallest lemur on Madagascar), with their Phil the Greek virus, that it would be a race between the dogs, pigs and bears to replace us as the dominant intelligent species.
My money’s on the bears and the fact that polars and grizzlies, (and black and brown bears), can hybridize so easily, added to their ability to stand on their own two feet and grab food with their front paws, gives them a bit of an advantage.
I’ve tried to point out to the misanthropic green nutters that their desire to cut the human population back to a half billion would give poor Gaia a break of less than a thousand years before we’d be back building factories powered by coal, and even if they wiped out everything with an opposable thumb, (including the aforementioned lemur), something else would take our place in less than a million years.
And guys, Gaia doesn’t give a toss which species is on top or how many smoky factories they build. Mainly on account of the fact that there’s no such entity as gaia.
My money would be on cats.
They do what works for THEM.
Sorry dog lovers, but have you ever seen cats pulling a sled?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Life goes on.
I’m not sure it would be wise to resist the sexual advances of a grizzly bear. I’ve read that the best thing to do when a grizzly approaches Is to lie on the ground and accept what happens.
Is that what happened to DiCapprio in his latest movie?
According to https://polarbearscience.com/ the bear (I think it is the same bear referred to here) has not been confirmed as a hybrid through DNA testing. It may be an albino grizzly because of its location (on land) and condition (thin like a grizzly that just came out of hibernation). Known hybrids usually have a polar bear mother and thus would be fat on seals at this time of year.
David Smith – the bear is not an albino as nose and eyes were black, not pink, but white Grizzly and Black Bears are not unusual. But the rest of what you said is correct.
Better scrap all Priuses, ASAP.
If grizzlies and polar bears can interbreed and have fertile offspring, then they belong to the same species — they are just different races. Insisting that the hybrids are a problem, and the preferment of pure polar bears, would constitute “racism” and “white privilege.”
Yes!!!!
“My question: why aren’t greens celebrating this find, as evidence that Polar bears are capable of rapidly changing their phenotype, in response to radical changes to the polar climate?”
Wait … is the polar climate radically changing?
So what percentage of the 22,000 – 31,000 existing (white) polar bears are classified as Grolar or Pizzly bears? I’m really really worried…
Polar Bear Population ref:
https://polarbearscience.com/2016/05/01/climate-hustle-knows-ten-dire-predictions-that-have-failed-as-global-polar-bear-population-hits-20-31k/
“…is being treated as a terrifying sign of global warming in the Arctic.”
Now CAGW is tuning the cute, cuddly polar bears into golar killing machines! It won’t be long before they give up on trash heaps and head straight for schools.
So…..you protect the grizzly bears…..protect the polar bears…..there’s more of them…..they both expand their range
….and cross breed
We play real loose with this “species” thing……