Planet Gore has long marveled at the iconic status that the polar bear has acheived within the climate-catastrophe movement. Little boys and girls see a cute and cuddly cartoon polar bear and the programming kicks in: “Must . . . stop . . . mom and dad . . . from killing me.”
Here is an unfortunate story from the land of Kyoto. Scientists who had hoped to breed useful new polar bear cubs discovered a fatal flaw in their plan:
The municipal zoo in the city of Kushiro in Hokkaido brought in a polar bear cub three years ago. They named it Tsuyoshi, after the popular baseball outfielder Tsuyoshi Shinjo, and waited until it reached reproductive age.
In June, the zoo introduced Tsuyoshi to its resident bear, an 11-year-old female named Kurumi, and waited for sparks to fly.
But much to the disappointment of zookeepers, Tsuyoshi never made any amorous advances toward Kurumi.
Earlier this month, zookeepers put Tsuyoshi under anesthesia to get to the bottom of the matter. That’s when they made their discovery: Tsuyoshi is a female.
Still, the Kushiro zoo plans to keep Tsuyoshi because he — or rather, she — has become immensely popular with visitors.
“I have rather mixed feelings, given the need for breeding, but Tsuyoshi is an idol for Kushiro,” Yoshio Yamaguchi, head of the Kushiro zoo, told Japan’s Kyodo news agency.
One would think that telling the difference between boy bears and girl bears fell squarely under the category of settled science.