in Cologne, Germany. Brown × polar bear hybrids Since 1874, at Halle, a series of successful matings of polar and brown bears were made. Some of the hybrid offspring were exhibited by the London Zoological Society. The Halle hybrid bears proved to be fertile, both with one of the parent species and with one another. Polar × brown bear hybrids are white at birth but later turn blue-brown or yellow-white. An adult polar × brown bear hybrid bred in the 19th century is now displayed at the Rothschild Zoological Museum, Tring, England Crandall reported the first polar × brown bear crosses as occurring at a small zoo in Stuttgart, Germany in 1876 rather than Halle in 1874. A female European brown bear mated with a male polar bear resulting in twin cubs in 1876. Three further births were recorded. The young were fertile among themselves and when mated back to European brown bears and to polar bears. DNA studies indicate that the ABC Islands bears have mixed brown and polar bear ancestry. Kodiak × polar bear hybrids "Kodiak" or "Kodiak brown" is a term now applied to brown bears found in coastal regions of North America. In the far north these bears feed on salmon and often attain especially large size. "Alaskan brown" is sometimes used for Alaskan bears, but the main distinction is how far the bear is found from the coast. "Grizzly bear" is the term used for the brown bear of the North American interior. In 1936, a male polar bear accidentally got into an enclosure with a female Kodiak (Alaskan brown) bear at the U.S. National Zoo, resulting in three hybrid offspring. The hybrid offspring were fertile and able to breed successfully with each other, indicating that the two species of bear are closely related. The Kodiak is also considered by many to be a variant or subspecies of the basic Arctic brown bear. In 1943, Clara Helgason described a bear shot by hunters during her childhood. This was a large, off-white bear with hair all over his paws. The presence of hair on the bottom of the feet suggests it was not an unusually colored Kodiak brown bear, but a natural hybrid with a polar bear. In a 1970 National Geographic article Elizabeth C. Reed mentions being foster mother to 4 hybrid bear cubs from the National Zoological Park in Washington, where her husband was