Gender mix-up bear in demand
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
2008/12/1
Polar bear Gota, a male, plays at Oga Aquarium.(THE ASAHI SHIMBUN)
OGA, Akita Prefecture--An aquarium here is seeking the services of an enigmatic polar bear at a zoo in Hokkaido, after it was revealed recently that "he," in fact, was a she.
Oga Aquarium, run by the Akita prefectural government, asked Hokkaido's Kushiro Zoo if it could introduce the female bear, Tsuyoshi, to its own male polar bear, Gota.
"She is an ideal partner (for Gota) as both of them were born in the same year," Yukio Hori, director of the aquarium, said.
Gota was brought to the aquarium from Russia in 2005.
On Wednesday, he celebrated his fifth birthday without a mating partner, although he is old enough to start breeding.
The same night, there were reports that four-year-old Tsuyoshi, who had been sent to Kushiro Zoo for its breeding program, was found to be female.
Hori called Kushiro Zoo the next morning, requesting Tsuyoshi's services. Hori went to the zoo on Sunday to negotiate a deal.
In January 2005, Maruyama Zoo in Sapporo offered Tsuyoshi to Kushiro Zoo as a mating partner for its female polar bear Kurumi, now 11 years old.
The bears moved in together in June this year, but it was clear to zookeepers at Kushiro that they were just good friends, and romance was not in the cards.
While examining Tsuyoshi to find out why sparks had failed to fly, zoo officials found that he was actually a she.
It's not the only such gender confusion to hit Hokkaido's polar bear community.
Maruyama Zoo officials also offered polar bear Pirika, now 2 years old, to Obihiro Zoo, believing her to be male, only to discover, yet again, that they were mistaken.
Maruyama Zoo said it had checked the sex of both Tsuyoshi and Pirika when they were three months old and found them to be male.
"From now on, we will implement DNA checks to confirm the sex of polar bears," a Maruyama Zoo official said.(IHT/Asahi: December 1,2008)
Japan zoo finds polar bears fail to mate as both are female
TOKYO (AFP) — A Japanese zoo puzzled by its lack of success in getting two polar bears to mate has discovered the reason -- both are female.
The zoo in the northern city of Kushiro swapped an orangutan for a polar bear cub in January 2005, hoping it would eventually produce offspring with a female bear called Kurumi.
The cub, named Tsuyoshi after the popular baseball slugger Tsuyoshi Shinjo, reached the reproductive age of four last December.
"Even though the rutting season came in spring this year, Tsuyoshi didn't show mating behaviour such as chasing after a female bear," said zookeeper Hiroyuki Kubono. "We thought it might be because Tsuyoshi was still too young."
But suspicions deepened when Tsuyoshi was seen urinating just like Kurumi.
"We realised it's really odd," the zookeeper said.
The zoo sent some of Tsuyoshi's hair for a DNA test, the results of which suggested "he" was really a she.
Just to make sure, earlier this month the zoo anesthetised the bear and directly checked its body, said Kubono, adding: "It was female."
The zoo wants a male for mating and is considering swapping Tsuyoshi, but Kubono said she is hugely popular with visitors.
"Tsuyoshi came here when she was a cub and people just love her," he said
It is not an isolated case: Tsuyoshi's "brother," who was adopted by another zoo and turns three this year, has also turned out to be female.
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