Are you familiar with Knut, the baby polar bear born on December 5, 2006 at the Berlin Zoo in Germany? His mother rejected him and his twin brother at birth. (His twin died four days later.)
Knut spent the first 44 days of his life in an incubator. During that time his life hung in the balance. It was similar to another famous polar bear abandonment scene.
On November 6, 1994, Klondike and Snow were also abandoned at birth by their mother at the Denver Zoo. They were given only a 50/50 chance of surviving. But survive they did, and now they call the Wild Arctic exhibit at SeaWorld Orlando home.
Many of the same techniques used to keep them alive were employed to save Knut. It worked, he’s doing fine and getter bigger by the day. He’s also captured the hearts of Germans and others around the world.
So why on earth would anyone, especially an animal rights activist, declare that euthanizing little Knut would be more humane than letting him be raised by humans?
The animal rights activist was Frank Albrecht. According to Spiegel Online International, Bild, a German newspaper, quoted him as saying, “Raising him by hand is not appropriate to the species but rather a blatant violation of animal welfare laws,” and “In actual fact, the zoo needs to kill the bear cub.”
Say what? And he calls himself an animal rights activist?
But wait, here’s his side of the story:
Because it’s not natural for polar bears to be raised on a bottle, and if the mother had abandoned them in the wild (if she didn’t eat them first), they would have died as nature intended. And it wouldn’t have been the first time a zoo killed a baby animal for this reason. Hugo, a two-day old baby sloth, was killed by lethal injection at the Leipzig Zoo in 2006.
Albrecht referenced these things and claims that Bild took his quote out of context. What he’d meant to say was, “if one follows the line of argument used by Leipzig Zoo, then one would have to kill Knut as well.”
Interestingly, the case of the baby sloth caused quite a stir also and Albrecht actually protested its death. Unfortunately for Albrecht, even though he hadn’t meant it, he’ll always be remembered as the man who advocated putting poor little Knut to sleep.
Happily, that didn’t happen and Knut is thriving.
Knut Nuggets
• Knut is the first polar bear born in captivity at the Berlin Zoo in 30 years.
• Knut’s mom, Tosca, is a retired circus performer.
• Knut made his debut appearance to the public at the zoo on March 23, 2007.
• Knut throws temper tantrums! According to Andreas Ochs, a veterinarian at the Berlin Zoo: “Knut can get very angry, for example when he’s hungry and his bottle is blocked. He’ll start screaming and biting those around him. After all, [he] is not a teddy bear — he is a polar bear.” (As reported on Spiegel Online International by Frank Thadeusz.)
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