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- From grizzly to pizzly: dangerous half-breed white and brown bears have appeared in Russia
From grizzly to pizzly: dangerous half-breed white and brown bears have appeared in Russia
A hybrid of polar and brown bears has been recorded in Russia. According to scientists, such an animal was spotted on the Kuril island of Kunashir. Due to global warming, the ranges of the two species are increasingly overlapping, so experts have long been expecting the appearance of their common offspring. The new white-brown species, according to scientists, is more selective in its diet. A similar hybrid of a grizzly and a polar bear is well known in Canada, where it is called a pizzly. Meanwhile, an unusually high number of brown bear attacks on humans have been reported in the Russian regions this autumn. The day before, one of the cities of Khakassia faced a real bear siege.
A hybrid of a polar and a brown bear
In Russia, as a result of the crossing of white and brown bears, a new hybrid has appeared. In particular, such animals were observed on the Kuril island of Kunashir, Anatoly Kudaktin, Honored Ecologist of the Russian Federation, Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, told "Izvestia".
— Similar animals have already been obtained artificially through insemination. I noticed that the ranges of both species overlap back in the late 1980s. Interbreeding is quite a normal phenomenon, and it will continue. These species have different sexual behavior and nutritional spectrum, but there are no large intraspecific differences between them," he said.
Currently, visits by polar bears to the habitats of brown bears remain quite rare. This mostly happens in Taimyr and other northern territories. However, due to warming, such cases will occur more often. In 50 years, hybrids may become widespread, the scientist added.
On the island of Kunashir, on the territory of the "Kurilsky" nature reserve, there is a large population of brown — now there are about a hundred of them. Among them, there are silvery individuals with features characteristic of polar bears. According to one scientific version, the whites could have reached the island on the ice and interbred with the local browns, resulting in an unusual offspring. According to the reserve, such individuals make up from 5 to 8% of all bears on the island. One of them was even seen between houses in Yuzhno-Kurilsk.
Artem Akshintsev, a member of the expert council of the Presidential Foundation for Nature, agrees with the fact that descendants of white and brown bears already exist in Russia.
— Polar bears are moving to the southern regions. Their type of diet changes, they mix with local browns, and hybrids appear. The first such cases were described in North America, where polar bears and grizzlies interbreed. They are called "pizzly" — from the English words polar and grizzly. There is no well—established name for such hybrids in Russia yet," he said.
According to the expert, there are objective confirmations: periodically such animals get into the lenses of photo hunters. However, so far we are talking about isolated cases, so it is premature to talk about the statistics of such individuals.
How pizzly behaves
Russian hybrids may develop their own type of behavior that combines the characteristics of both parent species. Since polar bears, unlike brown bears, feed mainly on animal food, humans can also be perceived by them as potential prey, the expert explained.
— If a brown bear treats a person with fear, usually does not perceive him as prey and attacks when he feels threatened, then for a white bear any organic target, including a human, can be prey. The question remains as to which parent the hybrid will be closer to in behavior and other features," said Artyom Akshintsev.
In late summer and early autumn, a whole wave of bear visits to people took place in Russia. Predators have appeared in settlements in more than 40 regions, and the most difficult situation has developed in Eastern Siberia and the Far East. In some cases, the appearance of animals has led to deaths. Since August, 17 people have died in this way.
On the night of September 23, residents of Abaza in Khakassia noticed bears in different parts of the city. Dmitry Buchenik, the deputy head of the region, called the events a "bearish siege."
"The Taiga city is actually under a bear siege — the exits of the animals were recorded from all sides. Some animals were chased away, but three were killed, one bear was huge," he wrote on the messenger "Max".
Since the beginning of the season, at least 16 bears have been eliminated in Khakassia, whose behavior was considered potentially dangerous. In the neighboring Krasnoyarsk Territory, according to the main investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the region and Khakassia, six people died in 2026 as a result of attacks by brown bears. Since the beginning of September, 123 reports of animals in or near populated areas have been reported. In the Tomsk region, two people became victims.
Will bear hybrids become commonplace
The original ranges of the white and brown bears practically did not overlap. However, due to climate change and melting of the Arctic ice, the polar ones are losing their usual food supply and are forced to shift south, while the brown ones, on the contrary, are moving north, explained "Izvestia" a member of the Public Council of the Basic Organization of the CIS Member States for Environmental Education, associate professor of the Department of Environmental Safety and Product Quality Management at the Institute of Ecology of the RUDN University. Patrice Lumumba Vladimir Pinaev.
— Currently, pizzley has been repeatedly recorded in northern Canada. There has been a small population there since the early 2000s. On the territory of our country, the emergence of hybrids has probably already occurred in the north of Yakutia, since it is there that the ranges of polar and brown bears come into contact," he said.
Hybrids between genetically similar species are not uncommon in wildlife, Ksenia Lebedeva-Georgievskaya, curator of chemistry and biology at the RUDN University Evening School of Natural Sciences, added to "Izvestia". Individuals born from crossbreeding are sometimes found in zoos.
— They differ from their parents in that their morphology turns out to be intermediate between white and brown bears; their bodies are smaller than those of whites, but larger than those of browns, the skull is average compared to the massive skull of a polar bear and the graceful skull of a brown one. Hybrids have long necks like whites, but small shoulder humps like browns," she clarified.
Pizzley's fur looks more like a polar bear's as a child, but it darkens with age. The feet, like those of the polar ones, are covered with hair. According to the expert, the behavior of hybrids is also more similar to the behavior of polar bears.
At the same time, Anna Subbotina, coordinator of the polar bear study project "Master of the Arctic", noted that at the moment there is no scientific evidence of the existence of offspring from the natural crossing of these two species.
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