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I'm sure many of you are familiar with the German superstar bear, Knut. He rose to stardom when his mother abandoned him at birth. A keeper at the Berlin Zoo stepped in and raised the cub from childhood, feeding him from a bottle, cuddling him, playing with him and otherwise rearing the little one. The issue really came into the public attention when PETA and other animal rights groups argued that the cub should have been left to die, as it was nature's course and these activists believed animals shouldn't be kept in zoos anyway.
Knut passed away on March 19 and while activists are still crying foul, blaming the zoo for Knut's death, his fans will remember the adorable little bear that passed away far too soon -at only four years old. The zoo will be performing an autopsy, but results have not yet been released. In the meanwhile, we can console ourselves by remembering Knut kindly through this great memorial over at Cute Overload.
On a more positive note, the circle of life always continues and as the star of Berlin's zoo passes on, Rotterdam recently introduced their newest addition to the public for the first time. Little Vicks (seen above) was born on December 6 and is every bit as cute as little Knut once was.
I'm glad I'm not the only one to have noticed the baby bear rug...
although let's face it, the little guy had a longer and likely better life than if this had happened in the wild.
More to the point, RIP Knut. As for the zoo's involvement, it was a bad situation at the start, but it seemed they tried their best given Knut's unfortunate circumstances. People would be angry if they killed him, too - it's lose-lose for them. (The Youtube start image does look like a baby polar bear rug though.)
Lots of hte people bitching crying foul and blaming the zoo won't have a clue about biology or vet medicine. It's how it always is.
"Call me sick but I lol'd"
You are sick... but if this had been a person I would have probably laugh at that... but I'm messed up that way.