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Polar Bear Cub Receives the Masses

Thousands Make Easter Pilgrimage to See Knut

Knut worship has reached papal proportions this Easter with over 100,000 lining up to see the polar bear celebrity. The cub has sparked a surge in visitor numbers at zoos across Germany as people realize that most baby animals are sweet. But are they as cute as Knut?

Some 125,000 people have made the pilgrimage to see unfeasibly cute polar bear cub superstar Knut at Berlin Zoo over Easter, raising the total of visitors to 300,000 since he made his first public appearance 17 days ago.

The zoo has hired a team of security staff to organize the crowds and keep people moving as they watch him frolic and play in his enclosure.

Visitors from all over the world have been waiting in long lines for an hour or more to catch a glimpse of him. On Easter Monday some of them refused to budge once they got to see him and had to be moved on by Knut's burly bodyguards.

Hotels are offering Knut packages with zoo tickets included in the room price and coach tour operators have added a Knut visit to their itineraries. Meanwhile a Berlin children's choir is practicing a song about Knut in Japanese and confectionery company Haribo has designed a Knut-shaped marshmallow which will be hitting the supermarkets soon.

And what about Berlin's other zoo, the Tierpark Berlin, located deep in the east of the city? The contrast could not be greater. On Good Friday afternoon, only a handful of visitors were queuing up at the ticket booth and there were only a few hundred strolling around the spacious park with its impressively large animal enclosures.

A woman sold cuddly Knut toys at a little stall and in the zoo shop, Knut calendars and key rings were the only merchandise changing hands.

The Tierpark's two adult polar bears looked lonely as they strutted around their rock watched by a just a couple of families. The elephants weren't faring much better, even though they were providing as much entertainment as Knut does. Baby elephant "Kariba" kept getting nudged and knocked over by a larger elephant and struggled entertainingly to get back on her shaky four legs and retaliate with a feeble but determined charge.

Zoo Boom

However, other zoos around Germany have reported booming visitor numbers and attribute the surge to the incessant media coverage of Knut, combined with the mild spring weather. "There's a zoo boom in Germany at the moment," said the director of Landau Zoo in southwestern Germany, Jens-Ove Heckel.

Knut is also being credited with helping Germany's foreign relations. Top US and European Union officials meeting in Berlin last week praised their German hosts for presenting them with stuffed Knut toys during the talks, Reuters reported.

US Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein, in Berlin to discuss the sharing of air passenger data with the EU, told a news conference. "I came here with one objective in mind beyond engaging in a fruitful conference: I had to find little stuffed animal Knuts."

German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries obliged by presenting him and the other conference participants toy Knuts, in what proved to be diplomatic coup.

"It was a wonderful gesture of kindness and diplomacy," said Wainstein, smiling broadly. European Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini also got one and kept stroking it during the news conference.

And Portuguese state secretary Jose Magalhaes could hardly take his eyes off his Knut, first lying him down flat, then propping him up on his water glass.

cro/Reuters/dpa