Yellowknife (Dec 01/06) - Call it a "grolar" bear, call it a polar-grizz. Perhaps just call it a one-of-a-kind because you probably won't find anything like it outside of Greg Robertson's taxidermy shop.

Taxidermist Greg Robertson said mounting this "grolar bear" was certainly unique. The bear is a hybrid between a grizzly and a polar bear - previously unknown to science. - Mike W. Bryant/NNSL photo

Robertson has just finished mounting the famed polar/grizzly hybrid that made international headlines earlier this year after an American hunter shot it while on a guided hunt to Banks Island in April.

Until DNA tests confirmed the bear was in fact a hybrid specimen, it was largely assumed that polar bears and grizzlies didn't mate.

"This is the first hybrid we've ever done," said Robertson on Wednesday.

"It was unique mounting. It was quite a challenge."

The seven-and-a-half foot animal now stands on a rock and snow-replica mount created in Robertson's Yellowknife shop. It's now ready to be shipped to the man who bagged it, Jim Martell of Glenns Ferry, Idaho.

One eye glares inquisitively to the left as if it had just passed an interesting morsel to eat and was looking back to see if it was still there.

Robertson said the blondish-coloured bear was a special case in more ways than one. For starters, Robertson had to design a special mannequin over which the bear's skin was fitted.

Grizzly and polar bears have differently shaped bodies, said Robertson.

"There was a lot of carving and rasping," said Robertson.

The "grolar bear" looks more like a polar bear, but there are differences.

There are dark patches around its eyes, which are absent on a polar bear. Its legs are longer than a grizzly's but shorter than a polar bear's. Its neck length is also somewhere in between.

Robertson said when the skin came in, he was expecting it to smell like a polar bear but it didn't.

"I was expecting a more oily, fishy smell," said Robertson.

"I think it had been hibernating for the winter. It had no fat reserve."

From start to finish, mounting the bear took about a week, said Robertson. The price tag is the same for another bear its size - about $9,000, said Robertson.

He said Martell was anxious to receive the trophy bruin. From what he was told, the hunter plans to put the bear on display at a Safaris Club International show in Reno, Nevada, in January.