Way back, before St. Patrick banished the snakes from the Emerald Isle, brown bears roamed from bog to bog and had a rare old time. Climate fluctuations brought changes in neighbors and all sorts of opportunities for shenanigans.
Just like today, that shining white, pillar of society, Ursus maritimus, was stamping his image across country. A study covering the last 120,000 years by a huge international team is published in the early edition of the Journal of Current Biology (1). They have been ferreting out the truth through the matriarchal lines using analysis of mitochondrial DNA.
Like so many of our US presidents, our current population of polar bears have Irish ancestors. With their liking for seals and cold weather, they left the Emerald Isle for where? – well Greenland, of course.
Currently, they are having to move south and are bumping into Grizzlie neighbors in Northwest Canada, where they have been getting up to their old Don Juan-like tricks. Some Grolars have been spotted wandering about the place.
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