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Rick7450 · Joined: 29 Apr 2006 Posts: 5

Here's a good you for you. The link is to an article about a bear bagged by a hunter in Canada's Northwest Territory that is half grizzly and half polar bear, a mix that some experts had never expected to find in the wild.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12738644/from/ET/

They say without the DNA results the hunter was facing the possibility of a $1,000 fine and up to a year in jail for shooting a bear for which he had no permit. The hunter had paid $50,000 for guides and a permit to hunt polar bear. Without the DNA, he was going to be out a lot of money as well as well as loosing the trophy.

WesternHunter · Joined: 05 May 2006 Posts: 630 Location: Western USA

Gee! It's not like the guy shot a donkey mistaking it for a deer or anything like that :o

RidgeRunner_07 · Joined: 25 Jun 2005 Posts: 305 Location: Chewelah,Wa

::-k Kewl pic...neat bear

e4c4ever · Joined: 11 Oct 2006 Posts: 151 Location: Maryland

WesternHunter wrote: Gee! It's not like the guy shot a donkey mistaking it for a deer or anything like that :o

+1

fuzzybear · Joined: 31 Mar 2004 Posts: 1291 Location: Washington

I don't find that aurprising.
The polar bear decended from the grizzly.

Makwa · Joined: 26 Dec 2006 Posts: 248 Location: Canada

The results were that it was in fact a grizzly/polar bear hybrid. The hunter was not charged.

In these times of global warming....if that is what it is..things are changing. The polar bears in Churchill are waiting longer to get out on the pack ice in the fall. Polar bears are showing up further inland and causing problems ar camps where they have never caused problems before. The barren ground or tundra grizzlies are being seen further north than ever before....I am talking about up on the arctic islands in northern Canada far north of the mainland.

LlindeX · Joined: 28 Mar 2007 Posts: 44 Location: Colorado

Gee, it looks enough like a polar bear that you'd have to wait until he sank his teeth into you to be close enough to tell the difference. What kind of idiot game department would be trying to fine the guy for shooting it as a polar bear? Where was this taken and did he have to pay for the DNA testing or did the game department pick up the tab? If the Game Department has to have DNA to know for sure what the animal is, then how in the world can they expect the hunter to know. Looking at the background in the picture, it certainly looks like he was hunting in polar bear country. Its not like he was hunting in grizzly bear country where he stood a one in ten million chance of coming across a white grizzly. Looking at the bear and its location in the picture, I say that any judge in his/her right mind would find in favor of the hunter, then give the mindless game official who wrote the ticket a real tongue lashing. Can you imagine setting thru the trial as a juror on this one? One look at the picture and I'd have trouble not busting a gut laughing at every word the game officals said after that. I'd say that if the Game Department made him pay for the DNA testing, he should take them to court to get his money back plus some extra to cover lawyers fees, mental anquish, public embarassment, harasment, etc. If I were him, I'd try to "throw the book at them in return".

atomikall · Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 9:56 am Post subject:

I AGREE THATS TOTAL BS. From the picture I say grizzly and I woulda shot it too if I had the tag.

jim muir · Joined: 09 Mar 2007 Posts: 110 Location: new brunswick

Thats as dumb as them trying to charge a guy who shot a doe white tail with antlers. The only reason they knew it was a doe was because he mentioned it wonderring if the deer was safe to eat. but yeah i would have assumed it was a polar bear too sure looks like polar bear country to me and its a big white bear... oh well the dnr guys are understaffed, underfunded and unappreciated, but stuff likes this makes it hard for me to care.