Knut is a polar bear living in the Berlin Zoo . It is the first born in a German zoo since the 1980's .
His parents are Lars and Tosca . The bear was born Dec. 5 of 2006, in a very difficult birth: his twin brother died in childbirth, and a few hours later the mother could not bear to be with him, apparently by the death of his puppy.
Knut shot to fame when Frank Albrecht, an activist famed animal rights in Germany , told a German newspaper that the polar bear should be euthanized. His justification for this was that the bear, being rejected by their parents and being raised by humans, suffer behavioral problems for the rest of his life. " Parenting by a human being not only goes against nature, but contrary to the German animal protection law " he said. According to Albrecht, had to kill the bear with a shot to save you pain.
But Dörflein, a zookeeper in Berlin , decided to take care of Knut, so that one day he said goodbye to his wife, left home and moved to live with Knut, in a room at the zoo. Knut bought him a basket to serve him in bed, and a giant teddy bear that would not feel strange. And with a bottle Dörflein proposed becoming a "father" for the bear.
Since then, millions of people began to follow Internet Knut avatars. At the same time, zoo officials thought they were going to do with Knut care if their "mother" enabled him to live. Bear left on the covers of almost all German newspapers and became a national issue.
Berlin Zoo decided to pay for their food and care, and was filed on March 23 of 2007 to the public at the zoo, attended by over 500 journalists, the German Minister of Environment Environment and thousands of people. Dörflein only follows Knut, who now is his "mother."
The German broadcaster ARD reported that over 10 days broadcast live the life of Knut.
In late April 2007 the zoo received a letter with a clear threat to Knut, who according to the letter would be dead at noon on the 19th. Fortunately all was an incident without much significance.
* Copied shamelessly from Wikipedia
![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}