Knut the polar bear has died, zoo confirms
Posted March 19, 2011 2:50 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Knut the polar bear has died, officials said Saturday.
It’s not known why the star attraction of the Berlin Zoo collapsed in the water of his enclosure.
He had been hand-raised by keepers at the zoo since his 2006 birth. The little cub gained notoriety after his mother rejected him, and he formed close bonds with zoo staff.
Knut’s death was a shock, his keeper said – about 600 visitors witnessed his collapse.
“The shock was big as you can imagine, when we realized that [the dead polar bear] was Knut,” Heiner Kloes told Reuters Television.
“We always said that Knut is one of the many animals here at the zoo. But he was a little bit more than that. He was a personality which kept us fascinated for a long while. And we formed relationships [with him],” Kloes added.
Knut’s first keeper, Thomas Doerflein, was found dead in apartment in September 2008.
