Fans agree Germany's polar-bear cub too cute to kill

BERLIN — He's only 15 weeks old, but the Berlin Zoo's impossibly cute polar-bear cub, Knut, has become a sought-after media star in his home city with his own TV show and video podcast, a photo shoot with Annie Leibovitz and a long-awaited public debut soon.

Fascination with the nearly 19-pound bear surged in recent days after headlines generated by an animal activist who insisted the cub should have been killed after Knut's mother, Tosca — formerly a performing animal in an East German zoo — ignored him, and his twin brother died in December. They were the first polar bears born at the zoo in 33 years.

Zoo officials intervened, choosing to raise the cub themselves.

Knut is bottle-fed, washed and cuddled by his adoptive father, who moved in to the zoo to sleep in a bed by the bear's crate. Newspapers report that zookeepers also play him Elvis songs on the guitar and gave him Christmas presents.

Some animal-rights campaigners think this will humanize the bear too much and want the zoo to stop saving young animals.

"Hand-rearing a polar bear is not appropriate and is a serious violation of animal rights," the Bild newspaper quoted animal-rights campaigner Frank Albrecht as saying.

"In fact, the cub should have been killed," he added.

Berlin Zoo said the animal would not be put down or left to fend for itself: "That's complete nonsense," a spokesman said.

The story earlier this week prompted quick condemnations from the zoo, politicians and other animal-rights groups who argued that although the bear would be more used to humans than his counterparts in the wild, there was no reason not to have kept the cub alive.

"Polar bears are under threat of extinction, and if we feed the bear with a bottle, it has a good chance of growing up and perhaps becoming attractive as a stud for other zoos," Andre Schuele, a veterinarian at the zoo said.

The fuss over "Cute Knut" continued Wednesday with Bild publishing a Knut poster, matched by Berlin's B.Z. tabloid.