Knut the Polar Bear

By MELISSA EDDY, Associated Press Writer
Thu Mar 22, 2:39 AM ET

BERLIN - He's only 15 weeks old, but the Berlin Zoo's impossibly cute polar bear cub Knut already 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 scheduled in the coming days.

Zoo officials were meeting Wednesday to discuss when the button-eyed cub, who has endeared himself by snuggling up to his own teddy bear and wrestling with a toilet brush, will be put on public view after building a following through the zoo's Internet site and daily pictures in newspapers.

"I think that people will be able to see the bear by this weekend," Andreas Ochs, a veterinarian with the Berlin Zoo said on N-24 television, noting that he would have to be shown with his handler and only for brief periods throughout the day.

"Certainly, the public is going to have to be patient, as there will be a huge interest," Ochs said.

Fascination with the nearly 19-pound bear, has only grown in recent days, after headlines generated by an animal activist who insisted that the cub should have been left to die after his mother ignored him and his brother — who later died — after their birth in December. They were the first polar bears born at the zoo in 33 years.

Zoo officials intervened, instead, choosing to raise the cub themselves through bottle-feeding and keeping the cub in an incubator.

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, another veterinarian at the zoo said.

The fuss over "Cute Knut" continued on Wednesday with the country's largest newspaper, Bild, publishing a Knut poster, matched by Berlin's own B.Z. tabloid.

Knut, who recently posed for a photo shoot with star-photographer Annie Leibovitz for an environmental protection campaign, will star in a TV series documenting his life on Berlin's RBB public television station starting Sunday.

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