It turns out an odd-looking bear shot and killed by a hunter in Arviat, Nunavut, last month wasn’t a hybrid of a polar bear and a grizzly bear — it was a blonde grizzly.
The hunter, Didji Ishalook, said the animal was shaped like a grizzly, but had the colouring of a polar bear.
“It turned out to be a grizzly half-breed,” Ishalook said at the time.
But Nunavut’s Department of Environment (DOE) has confirmed that the “unusual” bear is not a hybrid.
“DOE submitted a tissue sample to a genetics lab for DNA analysis in order to verify the ancestry of the harvested bear,” Carrie Harbidge, an environmental education specialist, told CBC News.
“The DNA lab concludes that the animal was a blonde grizzly bear, and it does not have a polar bear parent. Therefore, the harvested bear was not a hybrid.”
Based on photos, a bear expert agreed with Ishalook in May, saying polar bears and grizzly bears have similar genetics and a history of interbreeding. Hunters in northern Canada have reported at least three of the hybrid bears since 2006.