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thepeanutbutterman t1_is1m2sp wrote

We were so caught up with whether or not they could, we never stopped to ask whether or not they should!

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LuckyLupe t1_is1zo1z wrote

Sadly this is a natural occurrence because more and more polar bears migrate south into canada for example because if global warming where they meet and mate with grizzly bears.

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CosmoKrammer t1_is235jh wrote

Migrate South into Canada... from Canada.

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need4speedcabron t1_is2clcm wrote

Some people just can’t help being pedantic. You know what he meant.

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CosmoKrammer t1_is3cf62 wrote

Actually yes, reading it over again I can see that it still makes sense.

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JustBreatheBelieve OP t1_is1mgto wrote

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/17/magazine/should-you-fear-the-pizzly-bear.html

"We might regard these developments as unintended consequences of intensifying human activity on the planet. Yet in the past decade or so, scientists have discovered that the genomes of many species — far more than previously thought — contain what seem to be snippets of DNA from other species, suggesting they were shaped not only through divergent evolution but also by occasional hybridization. "

"Polar bears and grizzlies appear to have hybridized before. Descendants from past intermixing live off the southeastern coast of Alaska, on the Admiralty, Baranof and Chichagof Islands. The ABC bears, as they’re called, look outwardly like brown bears, but their mitochondrial DNA comes from polar bears, as does a portion of their X-chromosome. No one agrees when exactly the ancestors of these bears — one an omnivore, the other a carnivore that specializes in eating seals — bred. But it seems to have happened only occasionally, which suggests to some that natural climatic fluctuations, in the form of advancing and retreating glaciers, pushed the bears together, encouraging intermixture."

"“Biodiversity has developed in a web of life rather than a tree of life,” Arnold told me. That interconnectedness lends strength. “It’s sort of cool that evolution is really messy.”

The scientists I spoke to expressed often a combination of anxiety and awe as they talked about watching animal life respond to multiple pressures with a plasticity they’re only now coming to appreciate. The abiding question is: Will hybridization further erode biodiversity, preserve it, augment it — or some combination of all three?"

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