Nuremberg, Germany - Two polar-bear cubs vanished Monday,
probably gobbled up by their mother, at a German zoo which refuses to
prevent 'nature's way,' and declines to hand-raise its bears.
Their demise comes a year after Berlin Zoo scored a publicity coup
by removing a cub, Knut, from its mother and bottle-feeding it.
Knut played every day with his keeper, to the delight of crowds,
but is now too big and dangerous to play with humans.
At Nuremberg Zoo, which insists on leaving bear-raising to bears,
a keeper cautiously checked out the den of Vilma, a female, and saw
no more sign of her recent two offspring. But one or two cubs from
another female, Vera, were assumed to be still alive.
The zoo had warned in advance that it would not 'rescue' the cubs.
Chief executive Dag Encke said Vilma's cubs may have been sick. It
was common for carnivores to cull any of their young that became
weak.
'The mother bear today acted very nervously, had plenty to eat and
was obviously not hungry,' the zoo said in statement. 'We can only
guess as to how the cubs were killed. Till this morning, everything
was completely normal.'
One of the cubs of Vera, the other female, was seen Sunday
afternoon, when it was healthy and well.
The Bavarian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
attacked the zoo, saying it had breached its duty of care to the
cubs.
'You can't move polar bears into artificial surroundings and then
act as if they are still living wild,' said the society president,
Berthold Merkel. He demanded the zoo end its polar bear breeding
programme completely.
The 'rescue' of Knut in December 2006 triggered fierce debate
among animal experts, but children in Berlin and television crews
from round the world fell unquestioningly in love with the white cub,
which treated its keeper as a mother substitute.
Nuremberg Zoo says it lets the animals alone in their den and
believes that sending in keepers to check on them is likely to
disturb their natural behaviour.
It assumed from noises coming out of the dens that both females
had had two cubs about two weeks ago.
© 2008 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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