Polar bear-grizzly hybrids are extremely rare, though one was found (that is, shot) last year.
Now a second generation bear might have been discovered (shot by a native hunter). Story in the National Post.
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
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Is there any record of black bears breeding with grizzlies?
Jeff,
No, they are not genetically compatible.
Polar bears are actually an off shoot of the Brown bear and their hybridization, if you want to call it that, is all in the family.
With all of these extinctions, we need some hybridization to give the taxonomists something to do! 😉