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BERLIN — Knut the polar bear cub abandoned by his mother was a sensation one year ago, a ball of adorable white fluff that seduced the nation and the world beyond, even landing on the cover of Vanity Fair with Leonardo DiCaprio. But lately, he has been Germany’s problem cub more than its darling.
Aexl Schmidt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Knut, much grown-up, in
his enclosure at the Berlin Zoo in April.
As the bear has grown from a virtual living stuffed animal into a 350-pound
adolescent, newspapers here have taken issue with everything from Knut’s
weight to his sexuality, with one paper asking if the bear is gay. But
the most enduring question is the one posed by animal-protection groups
from the very beginning: how being hand-raised by humans would affect him
when he grew up. When Knut was nuzzling his handler, Thomas Dörflein, to
the delight of an adoring public, the objections of outside experts were
brushed aside. His antics weren’t bad for business either, bringing in
an estimated $8 million in extra revenues for the Berlin Zoo last year.
But times change, cubs grow up and those experts may have been on to something
after all. “With Knut, it’s clear that he has imprinted on humans, and
when neither his keeper nor visitors are there he cries out,” said Thomas
Pietsch, a biologist and expert on wild animals for the animal-welfare
group Four Paws in Germany. Peter H. Arras, a zoologist and animal-protection
advocate put it more succinctly: “He’s a psychopath addicted to human attention.”
That attention has fallen off significantly. Knut is now too large and
too strong to play with Mr. Dörflein. And the largest crowds of spectators
have moved south. In the Bavarian city of Nuremberg, a new young cub named
Flocke, or Snowflake, claimed the crown of cuteness when she was introduced
to the public earlier this month. A third cub in Stuttgart, named Wilbär,
is being brought up the old-fashioned way, by his mother....... |
Mirror.co.uk