teutonic baby polar bear kill frenzy scandal
You may have come across this already: there is currently a heated debate about the fate of a baby polar bear named Knut, currently residing (or being held captive, depending on your perspective and level of insanity) in a German zoo. Should he live happily in captivity, or should he be put to death in his own best interests?
Knut and a sibling were born in captivity. However, their mother rejected them, and they were headed for an early demise before zoo authorities stepped in and decided to keep Knut alive with a human surrogate parent. As such, a bearded German zookeeper is now living, eating, sleeping, and frolicking with Knut 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
‘Debate’ is probably too strong a word: some (radical) animal rights activists have announced that keeping Knut is these conditions is a gross violation of his rights as an independent, ursine citizen of Earth:
Hand-rearing a polar bear is not appropriate and is a serious violation of animal rights
So, what should be done about it? Well, obviously:
In fact, the cub should have been killed.
This stance has been supported by some other eminent bear-ologists, including the “German Bear Foundation” and rival zookeepers (I wonder if rival German zookeepers spend their time plotting and conspiring against each other? Is Knut just a pawn in some deadly teutonic animal park end-game?).
Predictably, everyone else says “Verlassen Sie den reizenden kleinen Eisbär allein!”* Berlin Zoo is having none of it, noting that polar bears are endangered and there’s a good chance that Knut will be able to participate in a captive breeding program when he’s all grown up (and no longer quite so cute and cuddly, unless you happen to be a female polar bear).
Anyway, the whole thing raises a number of semi-interesting questions. Can or should animals, as individuals, really have ‘rights’ in the sense of “the right to live in a ‘natural’ manner”? Can this can be distinguished from the notion that animals should not be subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment? After all, Knut looks like he’s having a whale of a time, and is certainly enjoying himself more now that he’s not slowly freezing to death while his disapproving Mutterbär looks on. Given that we have nearly completed our master-plan to destroy polar bears’ habitat anyway, is it really better to let them die rather than raising them in artificial surrounds? What kind of masochist tries to win an argument against the collective weight of the world’s public going “awwwwww” when looking at pictures of a fluffy baby animal?
And in the end, is it logically or ethically consistent to say that killing something is better than letting it live, quite happily, in unnatural surroundings? Doesn’t this presume that a polar bear has some inherent interest in living in a certain manner, but not in living in the more general sense (i.e. “not being killed by mad Germans”)?
* “Leave the charming small ice bear alone!” (damn on-line translation services).
Well, if I was a small Eisbar, I would prefer to be alive with humans caring for me than starving to death. I really don’t understand these people. They are fundamentalists who don’t really care for animals…
My daughter loves Knut. She saw him on the television and jumped up and down shouting “Doggy!” (that’s the only word she has at the moment for animals). See, babies know where it’s at!
Hi, thought i could as well pop in and spread good news (or gute Neuigkeiten!
) Sorry for my verboseness.
This has been twisted to the bizarre by the press. Noone really, and seriously, has demanded the killing of Knut. No matter what Bild says about this matter (and what several other news services in print and online copy from them.)
An objective press covering would, of course, not have produced heart wrenching covers like this: “Baby polar bear killed by lethal injection” *sob*
What did happen was more or less this: the cub is being raised by hand by the zoo personel, as have been a lot of animals in that and every other zoo without quite as much press coverage – well,he is cute! Zoos live of small media hypes around their newborn, honestly said. A friend of us was a zoo director for all his professional life and told us that zoos around the world live of the cutesy factor from time to time even if they don’t know wether there will be room for the grown up animal. Baby seals are cute, but twenty grown up seals in one bassin don’t work. So, those zoos -around the world- show off baby seals – and kill the grown ups when setting them free is no option and no other zoo will take them.
That is what happens, and that is what this animal rights activist wanted to discuss. Weeks back he published a comment, that accused the zoo “business” of hypocrisy when it comes to raising cute baby animals by hand. He did add that keeping the animal species appropiate, which zoos claim to try, would have meant letting him die.
Poisonous injections have never been mentioned. Until, that is, weeks later (!) the Bild picked up the statement and made up (which is the correct term here) the story which is now, seemingly, making it around the world.
Now, you can discuss a lot about what animal rights activists claim and demand, but this poor guy, and a few like minded people, is experiencing some undeserved media attention right now.
The idea that an animal ‘prefers’ something is interesting in itself. Whilst animals do have quite distinct personalities, I’m not sure that they have ideological preferences of this kind.