BEARSCARE

In case you haven’t heard already, Knut, the AWESOME polar bear cub who captured our hearts and minds a year or so ago (pictured below), is BEING SOLD. I intend to buy him.

Look, here’s the thing. I love that bear. I never got to Germany to visit him and I can’t imagine going to some other loser country where he might wind up. My plan is to keep him in the middle bedroom of our apartment. There’s a red sofa in there that he can sleep on and a book case and I could even clear our stuff out of the closet. There’s only one problem: polar bears are expensive. BUT I’m taking donations. Please leave the amount you’re pledging along with contact information as a comment and I will get back to you. This is urgent. I expect I’ll need $100,000+ USD. Contributors will have some visitation privileges.

Writing for this website is a true joy. Usually. But, along with writing about great animal-related events comes the responsibiity of covering the tragedies. With over 14,000 site views, it is my sad duty to report that Knut’s loving keeper has died.

No one knows the cause of death yet and we should all just take time to mourn and remember. And we can’t blame Knut-it’s highly unlikely he had anything to do with it and he’s mourning too.

Here’s the story on CNN.

RIP Doerflein.

We all know the Chinese are wrong about everything and this is no exception. 2008 is the year of the rat? I don’t think so. 2008 is the year of the polar bear. It is a great honor to present to the world this bear:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhrQh2ojYWw]

After Knut, Flocke and now this new cub, Germany would be a pretty sweet place to visit (for the zoos). I’m sure there will be more information on this little fellow to come and it will be right here.

Germany has made a lot of mistakes in the past but it looks like they’re finally getting it together in the 21st Century. About a year ago, they rescued a polar bear named Knut (pictured below). He’s growing up and becoming vicious just like any other sweet bear.

Well, Germans finally know a good thing when they see it. When a mother polar bear, Vera, who is presently living at the Nuremberg Zoo, started acting like a maniac (pacing back and forth, carrying her cub in HER JAWS, etc) zookeepers decided to intervene [1]. And now we have a sweet, 4-week-old bear to hang out with.

Apparently the cub is doing well. Nobody knows for sure what sex the bear is, but there is thought that it is female. It is being called “Flocke”, which is German for “flake” (like snow flake–yeah, totally lame name), but the Germans are accepting suggestions for a permanent name since they aren’t creative enough to do it themselves [2].

The video below shows Flocke and her mother. The mother is clearly berserk, but still sweet. I’m glad that Flocke is going to make it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RCwi1HUkpw&rel=1]

There is an excellent website devoted to Flocke here.

[1] http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i26YSrioqHf1q-seU1ErRJ9DTxQA

[2] http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hhQQi1WKMMdbmNNE7_bMbrSj6LEwD8U3VNU00