By Dr. Robert Thorson
Shoot first, ask questions later. That was my first thought when I learned that a big-game hunter from Idaho had shot a hybrid cross between a grizzly and polar bear in the high Canadian Arctic.
The hunter, Jim Martell, apparently had violated the hunter’s first axiom: “Know what you are shooting at before you pull the trigger.” At a deeper level, this case boggles my mind with ideas about the arrogance of human beings toward nature, the forensic power of DNA testing and the response of ecosystems being driven crazy by global warming.
The creature shot dead last month was the offspring of a grizzly bear father and a polar bear mother. It had an odd mixture of traits, not the least of which were patches of brown hair on a pearly white background. It also had the longer claws, higher shoulders and blacker eye-rings typical of grizzlies. This unique beast is being dubbed a polargrizz, pizzly or grolar. I would call it a bad news bear.
On the plus side, those who mount dead heads in their homes as trophies were probably excited at the prospect of killing something new under the sun. But on the downside, those who formerly thought they had a complete collection of dead heads (black, grizzly, Kodiak and polar) must now realize their collection is incomplete.
Wildlife biologists and animal behaviorists were also excited by the first clearly documented case of interbreeding between these species in the wild. Fertile hybrids had been bred in zoos. And the two bears’ geographic ranges and breeding seasons overlap slightly, making a conjugal union theoretically possible, assuming the bears could get past physical and behavioral barriers to mating. We now know that the two species did interbreed naturally. Someone saw them cavorting together, but not the culminating act.
Animal rights activists behaved predictably, arguing that sport hunting of any kind is unethical. Martell wasn’t hunting for food or fiber. He paid more than $45,000 for the opportunity to kill, not to mention the costs of the equipment, the trip and the guide. What was it was that impelled Martell to spend so much? Blood lust? Machismo? Adventure? Travel? Escape?
My second thought about the bad news, hybrid bears concerned the forensic power of DNA testing. Canadian wildlife officials had seized Martell’s funny-looking carcass because he had been licensed to shoot a Nanook (Inuit for polar bear), not a grizzly. Had the DNA tests come out differently, Martell would have been jailed or fined. Instead, he will be given his dead beast back, worth more now as a “whatchamacallit” than just another Nanook. My first recommendation would have been to jail or fine him half the stipulated amount, because half the bear’s genes were illegal. But, then, Martell wasn’t doing anything illegal when he pulled the trigger.
This case made me think about another hybrid in the news. Geneticists are reporting that ancestral human beings were interbreeding with ancestral chimpanzees several million years ago. I suppose that if two species of bears can do it in the wild, then so can two species of apes. If the key fits …
My most bewildering thought went to the question of how global warming is playing itself out in the Arctic. We’ve heard much about the retreat of glaciers, the melting of permafrost and withdrawal of the pack ice. The expansion of grizzlies into polar bear habitat can be viewed as a biological example of climate-induced changes in a northern ecosystem.
The problem with warming today isn’t really the temperature. It’s about the rate of change to ecosystems and their political implications.
Given enough time, ecosystems can adapt just fine. But global warming today is taking place so fast that ecosystems are having trouble adjusting. Perhaps the bears are confused and don’t know what to think anymore.
Martel shot a bear first, then learned the consequences. We shot the atmosphere with an overload of carbon dioxide before knowing what the consequences will be