Knut (December 5, 2006 – March 19, 2011) was a polar bear who was born in captivity at the Berlin Zoological Garden. Rejected by his mother at birth, he was raised by zookeepers. He was the first polar bear cub to survive past infancy at the Berlin Zoo in more than 30 years. At one time the subject of international controversy, he became a tourist attraction and commercial success. After the German tabloid newspaper Bild ran a quote from an animal rights activist that decried keeping the cub in captivity, fans worldwide rallied in support of his being hand-raised by humans. Children protested outside the zoo, and e-mails and letters expressing sympathy for the cub's life were sent from around the world.
Only the size of a guinea pig, he spent the first 44 days of his life in an incubator before zoo keeper Thomas Dörflein began raising the cub.
Knut's need for round-the-clock care required that Dörflein not only sleep on a mattress next to Knut's sleeping crate at night, but also play with, bathe, and feed the cub daily. Knut's diet began with a bottle of baby formula mixed with cod liver oil every two hours, before graduating at the age of four months to a milk porridge mixed with cat food and vitamins. Dörflein also accompanied Knut on his twice-daily one-hour shows for the public and therefore appeared in many videos and photographs alongside the cub. As a result, Dörflein became a minor celebrity in Germany and was awarded Berlin's Medal of Merit in honour of his continuous care for the cub. Dörflein died of a heart attack on 22 September 2008. He was 44 years old.
Knut became the center of a mass media phenomenon dubbed "Knutmania" that spanned the globe and spawned toys, media specials, DVDs, and books. Because of this, the cub was largely responsible for a significant increase in revenue, estimated at about five million euros, at the Berlin Zoo in 2007. Zoo attendance figures for the year had increased by an estimated 30 percent, making it the most profitable year in its 163-year history.
Photographer Annie Leibovitz took pictures of Knut that were used for an environmental campaign, including Vanity Fair magazine's May 2007 Green Issue in which he was superimposed into a photograph with American actor Leonardo DiCaprio. The polar bear has also been depicted on the logo for the German Environment Minister's campaign to help stop global warming and a 2008 special issue stamp. Officially released on 9 April, the stamp shows the roughly one-year-old Knut with the slogan "Natur weltweit bewahren" ("Preserve nature worldwide").
(source: Wiki)
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