Grolar Bears: Polar/Grizzly Hybrid
By: Hyunjee Lee
Intro
Grolar Bears were found as a new hybrid species inbetween the two grizzly and polar bear habitats. The grolar bear hybrid had the characteristics of both the grizzly and the polar bear. We will learn about the polar, the grizzly, and their hybrid in this digital presentation.
Polar Bears
About Them...
The polar bear has a diet of ringed and bearded seals, harp seals, reindeers, small rodents, seabirds, waterfowls, fish, eggs, vegetation(including kelp), berries, and human garbage. They even feed off of the carcasses of dead beluga whales, walruses, narwhals, and bowhead whales. They aren't the pickiest eater in the animal kingdom. Both genders of polar bears reach sexual maturity at different ages. For the female bears it is at 4-5 years while for the males it is at around 6 years. Their breeding season is usually March to June on the sea ice and from April to May for the rest. During the breeding seasons, the mates tend to find one another at the best sea hunting habitats by congregating with one another. The competition for the female polar bear is the most intense. The female who had already been accompanied by other male polar bears before the breeding season have the males fight to breed with her. Once the female and male polar bear are paired, they stay together for a week or longer. Polar bears can have many different mates in thier entire lifetime. For hibernation, a fun fact is that male polar bears do not hibernate. Only the female polar bears hibernate and that occurs from either October to November or from March to April. Man's actions and global warming both took part in decreasing the population of polar bears. Global warming decreases their sea ice habitat and the average bear weight dropped by 15%.
Grizzly Bears
About Them...
Grizzly bears are the other speices that mated with the polar bear to create the hybrid grolar bear. Their diet consists of forbs, roots, tubers, grasses, berries, other vegetation, insects, small rodents, fish, carrion, garbage, and even human food. Their mation season is from June to July and they usually have one to three baby grizzly cubs around Janruary that weigh only a pound or less. Grizzly bears have the 2nd slowest reproduction rate out of every North American animal. Grizzly bears are very valuable. If you shoot one, you could be fined 1000s of dollars and even recieve a life sentence to jail. The female grizzly bears dont tend to reach maturity age until they are around 4-9 years old. The female grizzly bear give birth to 2 cubs every 3 years generally. The hibernation times are from October to November lasting for the next 5- 6 months. Man's actions and global warming have also done their part of decreasng the population of the grizzly bears to the point where their death could result in a life sentence for a person. Now grizzly bears are denning later in the fall and their deaths are usually due to human defense. Their food resources have declined leading to the downfall of their population.
Grolar Bears
The Hybrid, The Grolars
With a carnivorious diet that includes the diet from both their parents, the grizzly bear and the polar bear, the grolar bear was the result and the offspring of the polar and the grizzly bear. They live in similar habitats as its parents which include artic areas, mountanious areas, and forest. They have a long neck, a shoulder hump that makes it look as if they are in a slouched position, a narrowing face similar to the face of a grizzly bear, and semihairy feet because with the polar bear being full of hair and the grizzly bear being hairless, they managed to fall right inbetween. On April 8, 2012, a grolar bear was shot by an inuvialuit hunter and was observed in the labratory. It was confirmed to be the crossbreed and the offspring of the polar bear and the grizzly bear. The Grolar bear, or Prizzly bear, are a white to palish brownish color and look majestic. The Grolar bear is the second generation hybrid offspring. The grolar bear exhibited and demonstrated behavior more similar to polar bears than grizzly bears. The grolar bear is predicted to fill ecological niches becauses it spends alot of time hunting with genetically passed skills from the polar bears and the grizzly bears. They are predicted to have a decrease and downfall in population because already due to man's actions and global warming , the polar bear and the grizzly bear are decreasing rapidly in numbers. The hybrid offspring brought wonders to America as we look foward to more strange unintroduced hybrids.