In the Land of the Pizzly: As Polar Arctic Ice Melts, Polar and Grizzly Bears Mate.
The melting of Polar ice is increasingly forcing Polar bears onto dry land, while road construction and mining in Southern Canada are pushing Grizzly bears to the North. It has also been observed that the melting of the Arctic ice has brought Polar bears and Grizzly bears together and their hybrid offspring, known as "Pizzlies". They have been detected on Canadian islands. The sighting was on Victoria Island, 500 kilometers (313 miles) from the Grizzlies' normal habitat on the Canadian mainland. Where the biologists soon realized there was a Grizzly bear next to a Polar bear. Brown bears occasionally stray far north, but it's unusual for them to stay there, and it's even more unusual to find them mating with Polar bears. In 2006, an American hunter shot an unusual-looking Polar bear on Nelson Head, a cape in Canada's Northwest Territories. DNA analysis established that the animal was the first recorded Pizzly found in the wild. Another bear was shot on Victoria Island in 2010. This time it was an even greater sensation, because the animal was the offspring of a hybrid bear, which meant that it was already a second-generation Pizzly. It is a trend that is happening with other species as well. A 2010 essay in the journal Nature counted 34 species that could be affected, and scientists are worried because it poses a risk to biodiversity.
The bears probably got there while pursuing reindeer in the winter, when the ice was frozen. When the ice melted in the summer, they stayed on the islands. They can find everything they need there, and the summers are also getting longer. Scientists expect that climate change and environmental degradation will result in more hybrids in the future. Biologists also fear that this will promote the development of hybrids. Populations whose habitats have been separated by masses of ice could interbreed: belugas with narwhals, largha seals with common seals, Greenland whales with North Pacific right whales they are exposed to a unique kind of threat: Hybrids are not a protected species, because they are not considered polar bears. For hunters, on the other hand, their rarity makes them an especially coveted trophy.