Thursday, June 17. 2010
Climate
Change Creates New Hybrids
Change Creates New Hybrids
 |
thousands of years, continental-sized barriers of sea ice have
separated
various
species of marine mammals, but Brendan P. Kelly, a marine biologist
with
International
Arctic Research Center at University of Alaska in Fairbanks,
suggests that as this summer ice melts away for good, these
species
will have to go to great lengths to survive, including creating new
hybrid
species.
Examples
of this kind of interbreeding, which is more possible between marine
mammals than among some other species are already accumulating, said
Kelly,
who has been documenting the evidence.
Recent
examples have occurred in the Canadian Arctic, including the 2006
discovery
of
a "Pizzly" or "Grolar" Bear in the wild - made possible by
warmer
climates and an extended ice-free season that have brought the
Grizzly
bear
into northern territories and forced Polar Bears to spend more
time
on land. Other recent examples have included a Narwhal/Beluga and
Harp/Hooded
seal
hybrids.
"We
may hang on to a lot of polar bear genes, they'll just be hidden in
the
grizzly
bear population. They'll still be bears- but they won't be the
polar
bears
we have known," Kelly said.
On
Adventure Canada's Into the Northwest Passage voyage in 2009, they
encountered
several
Grizzly Bears in Bathurst Inlet, Nunavut, an area also
known
for Polar Bears.
Join us on our Into the Northwest Passage: August
14-28,2010 by emailing Loretta at loretta@adventurecanada.com
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