Knut Turns Two as Berlin Holds Its Breath

[CielOnTap]

http://www.thestar.com/fplarge/photo/902174 Gallery of images of Knut enjoying his birthday treats (nice presentation) on his fourth birthday. Wasn't he to have moved to some other zoo?

[deja vu]

Berlin's beloved polar bear Knut, who rose to stardom when he was hand-raised by zoo keepers after being rejected by his mother rejected at birth, died on Saturday, a zoo official said.

The world-famous bear died alone in his compound, bear keeper Heiner Kloes told The Associated Press.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42166988/ns ... ws-europe/

I hope it's a case of natural caused and not by someone throwing something in the water that he may have
tried to swallow.

[pretzels]

Spasm was what I read happened to the bear in the water before he passed away. He also missed his "parent" the trainer so add broken heart and it can be like what happens to humans--spirit ebbs away.

[testzone]

Adorable in life, still attracting admirers in death: Knut the polar bear's hide has been mounted on a polyurethane body and is going on display in a Berlin museum.

The Natural History Museum on Friday unveiled the statue prepared by taxidermists featuring the famous Berlin Zoo bear's fur and claws, with the synthetic body and glass eyes.

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013 ... splay?lite


No no no no no, greed at it's worse and no dignity in death for Knut. Of course they dismissed the criticism, they only had
dollar signs in their eyes.

[CielOnTap]

Somehow I had missed the post above about the late Knut becoming a taxidermist's project for a display.

Today there is news of the actual cause of Knut's fall into the water-he had an illness that was known to humans but not known to animals, a form of encephalitis.

In 2011 in front of running cameras, Knut drowned after he suffered epileptic seizures and fell into the enclosure’s pool. Pathological analyses revealed that Knut suffered encephalitis which caused the seizures1. An exceptionally extensive investigation for infectious causes for a single animal failed to demonstrate a bacterial, viral or parasitic cause for the encephalitis. Highly detailed pathological investigations, histology, extensive serology, thirty five pan-PCR assays, two pathogen microarray systems, and shotgun sequencing on both the GSF FLX and Illumina HiSeq systems only revealed a serological response to influenza A and a novel endogenous retroviral group, neither of which would have been responsible for Knut’s symptoms1,2. Thus, a diagnosis of “encephalitis of unknown etiology” was established.

http://www.nature.com/articles/srep12805

I still stand by the broken-heart over the loss of his trainer as Knut's primary cause of death.