If you go out in the woods today: You're sure of a big surprise.
Courtesy tim ellisTurns out that teddy bear picnics involve more bloody mauling than songs would suggest.
Also, I'd like it if there are any bear experts that could confirm this for me, but I'm fairly certain that brown bears don't have "eight-inch fangs." The tyrannosaurus rex, after all, with the largest teeth of any carnivorous dinosaur, had teeth 12 inches long, and that includes the root. The T. rex also had a 5-foot-long skull, however, so there was more room for ridiculously long teeth—a large bear skull might be a foot and a half long.
Tags : JGordon hooked me up with this video of the Minnesota Zoo's grizzly bears taking on a 500-pound pumpkin. It's no contest: the pumpkin doesn't stand a chance. But the bears don't seem interested in eating the pumpkin, just destroying it. Why do bears hate pumpkins? :)
Rainbow coalition: Alaskan wildlife officials are using cheap hair dyes to color the fur of problem bears. Doing that, they think, will save many bears from being immediately killed from having negative interactions with humans. (Graphic from the Anchorage Daily News)When you’ve seen one grizzly bear, you’ve seen them all, right?
Not in Alaska. Grizzlies that have become nuisance bears – repeatedly having negative interactions with the human populations up in the 49th state – are getting a drastic, punk makeover.
Wildlife officials are dousing the problem bears with brightly colored hair dyes, giving humans coming in their way a quick sign that these bears have caused trouble in the past. This summer, you might just see a grizzly in Alaska decked out in yellow, green, orange or blue fur.
Okay all you self-righteous animal activists. Before you hit the reply button to submit your protest to this idea, take a second to read the reasoning behind all of this.
In the past, problem bears were shot dead. No second chances. Just get them out of the picture.
The fur dying idea is a way to avoid that drastic measure. Now people will have a quick, dramatic visual clue that they are in the vicinity of a problem bear and can use that information to decide how they want to proceed with interactions with the creature.
Game officials will actually tranquilize the problem bears, shampoo their head, shoulders and hind quarters before applying the dye.
Over the past several summers, many grizzlies have been shot by game officials or by private citizens who felt threatened by the bears’ behavior. But will a funky new fur color have impacts on the bears’ interactions with other members of their own species? No one is sure about that.
What do you think about coloring bears’ fur for these purposes? Share your thoughts here with other Science Buzz readers.
Alaskan wildlife officials are using cheap hair dyes to color the fur of problem bears. Doing that, they think, will save many bears from being immediately killed from having negative interactions with humans. (Graphic from the Anchorage Daily News)
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Humorous naming possibilites abound for a new breed of bear discovered in the tundra of the Candian province of Nunavut. DNA tests have confirmed that the bear, shot by a Canadian hunter, is a previously-undiscovered cross between a Polar Bear and a Grizzly Bear. The hunter’s guide, Roger Kuptana, had noticed that the bear had a brown, spotty coloration and the slightly humped back of a grizzly, but not until last week did a DNA test confirm that a new hybrid had been discovered.
The possibility of a grizzly-polar bear hybrid has been known for years, and successful crossbreeds have been born in captivity. The range of the polar bear and the grizzly bear overlap slightly, and the breeding season of the two species are similar as well. However, no crossbreed had ever been found in the wild.
The DNA results are good news for the hunter, Jim Martell. He had been granted a permit to kill one wild polar bear, and the penalty for taking an grizzly bear without a permit is up to a year in jail. Now that the bear’s lineage has been established, Martell will not face any penalty and will be allowed to keep the bear as a trophy. He has dubbed it a “polargrizz.”
The crossbreed may indicate that there is a problem for both species. Both the Polar Bear and the Grizzly bear are considered threatened species, and the existence of hybrids might mean that the bears are having a difficult time finding mates. Additionally, wildlife geneticist David Paetaku (in an interview with CNN), expressed concern that the crossbreeding may water down the breeds of two already threatened animals.
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