March 27, 2008

BERLIN –- Having turned into an international darling, Knut -- the polar bear cub abandoned by his mother –has started showing the world a less endearing side.

Knut is seemingly self-obsessed and addicted to public attention, said one of his keepers at the Berlin Zoo.

Born December 2006, he has become a major attraction at the zoo, pulling in millions of dollars so far. But it has come at a cost.

His keeper, Markus Roebke, warns that Knut’s mental health is deteriorating.

“Knut must go and the sooner the better,” said Roebke, who believes the bear should be sent to an animal park where he would receive less attention.

“He actually is addicted to the whole show, the human adulation -– It is not healthy,” said Roebke who has watched the bear cry out and whimper if there is not a spectator outside his enclosure “ready to ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ at him.”

When black ice shut down the zoo recently, “he howled until staff members stood before him and calmed him down.”

The trouble stems from Knut identifying himself as a human, and not as a polar bear, Roebke added.

“And as long as he is with us, he will always think of Thomas Doerflein, the keeper who brought him up when he was a baby, as his father,” Roebke said. “Knut needs publicity and that must change.”

When Knut’s mother abandoned him after his birth – an act of natural selection seen in the wild –- the zoo came under fire for the decision to raise the polar cub.

Animal activists protested the decision, saying it would be better for the cub to die than to be weaned by man.

Now, the larger Knut grows so does the base of his admirers and it’s increasingly evident the toll it’s taking on the polar bear.

In January, Knut’s sanity was also questioned by a prominent animal conservationist who branded him “an animal psychopath.”

In the wake of his maturity and growing ails, Knut’s keepers are no longer “allowed to have contact with him and have received letters that if we breach this order our jobs are on the line,” said Roebke.

“He is too unpredictable to play with now,” he added.

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Robin Wallace, Pet Pulse, and Allan Hall, The Australian, contributed to this report.