Wrong to Save Polar Bear Cub?

[Racoon]

Some animal activists say that "Knut", who was abandoned by his mother in a German Zoo ought to be euthanized...
Zoo keepers stepped in however and started bottle feeding him.

He's awfully cute , and Polar Bears are endangered, so why euthanize him now?

If a human mother rejected her child after birth, would we euthanize it? hell no, it would be bottle fed and raised in an orphanage until adoption.
But in the wild, as humans once were, it would have been left to die as well.


Weigh in!

Wrong to save baby polar bear? - World Environment - MSNBC.com

BERLIN - Berlin Zoo's abandoned polar bear cub Knut looks cute, cuddly and has become a front-page media darling, but an animal rights activist insists it was wrong to intervene and save the cub.

"Feeding by hand is not species-appropriate but a gross violation of animal protection laws," animal rights activist Frank Albrecht was quoted as saying by the mass-circulation Bild daily, which has featured regular photo spreads tracking fuzzy Knut's frolicking.

"The zoo must kill the bear."

Protection against extinction?
But Knut belongs to the Berlin Zoo, and their veterinarian Andre Schuele, charged with caring for him, disagrees.

"These criticisms make me angry, but you can't take them so seriously," Andre Schuele said. "Polar bears live alone in the wild; I see no logical reason why this bear should be killed."

Schuele also argued that given the increased rarity of polar bears in the wild, it makes sense to keep them alive in captivity so that they can be bred.

"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," Schuele said.

[orbsycli]

hella cute. I want it. I'd bottle feed it any day. 'Til it got big, then I'd make it obey me, and run off to alaska and get eaten along the way, HEY!

[CraigD]

Methinks people, such as Frank Albrecht, calling for Knut the captive polar bear cub to be euthanized to spare him “suffering the humiliation of being treated as a domestic pet”, are anthropomorphizing in the extreme. I don’t think any evidence exists to suggest that polar bears, or any other animal with the possible exception of very intelligent ones such as apes, dolphins, and parrots, experience the complex emotion of “humiliation”.

Though I’m not at all familiar with German law on the subject, the argument that “in order to protect the animal, the zoo must kill the animal” seems so ironically silly that it must be intentionally so.

The Berlin zoo’s critics have a point, however: if Knut is to be able to successfully socialize with other captive polar bears as an adult, mate, or be released into the wild, his keepers should handle him as close to the way his bear mother would as possible, keeping him from the sight of crowds, dressing his handlers in realistic polar bear costumes, etc.

It appears to me the zoo intends rather to use him as a cute publicity object. If they can use this to increase public sympathy and get money for preservation programs, this seems to me an acceptable plan. It may be hard on Knut, though: once he gets a bit bigger, he’ll be much less cute and cuddly, and, I suspect, unsafe around humans. Hopefully whoever is in charge of his handling knows this, or the next time we see Knut on TV, it may be on a particularly grisly new episode of “When Animals Attack”.

[TheFaithfulStone]

Humiliation vs. Death?

I think I'll take humiliation - thanks.

TFS
[Winner by a cute-little-nose.]

[Titas Aduksus]

Nah, not wrong to save the little blighter, othrewise I'd advocate the slaughter of domestic pets - it's a publicity stunt, "all publicity is good publicity" comes to mind here.

[Michaelangelica]

This story is a total nonsense
How do you stop a story like this once it has got rolling?
There must be hundreds of articles about this on the web and hundreds of newspapers and magazines -ALL WRONG
The paracitical world media just plagiarize from each other and never check the original story or sources
So we get this garbage
Total lies, crap and 'beat up' by amoral, dumb, lazy media, who never check facts.
It says more about the poor standards of Journalism; and how a lie can whip around the world so quickly, than anything else

For the true story, which is much more interesting-
See transcript here within the next week
http://abc.com.au/mediawatch/

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Michaelangelica

This story is a total nonsense
…
For the true story, which is much more interesting-
See transcript here within the next week
http://abc.com.au/mediawatch/

While I agree with the general observation that journalistic source are increasingly and far too often lax in fact checking, and find the work of organizations like Mediawatch valuable and informative, unless Michaelangelica has personally spoken with Frank Albrecht, or read an account of someone who has, I think it premature to brand the statements attributes to him by the AP and other direct sources as “total nonsense”.

Of course, Albrecht by no means should be considered a spokesman for all “animal rights” activists, in Germany or worldwide, so one could criticize the AP and other journalists for not clearly pointing this out.

I consider the reporting of the “kill Knut” story to be a bit spectacular and silly, showcasing an activists with far-out views, but not (until show otherwise) inaccurate or deceptive.

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by CraigD

I consider the reporting of the “kill Knut” story to be a bit spectacular and silly, showcasing an activists with far-out views, but not (until show otherwise) inaccurate or deceptive.

So wait for the transcript and/or listen/read Frank Albrecht himself?
There are no activists with far-out views in this particular story.
The only people with far out views are lazy, incompetent journalists.