It’s a headline for the ages: ‘We want this baby polar bear dead’ say animal rights lobby. (Via Hot Air)

Tiny, fluffy and adorable, Knut the baby polar bear became an animal superstar after he was abandoned by his mother.

He rapidly became the symbol of Berlin Zoo, whose staff bottle-fed him and handed out cuddles in between.

At three months old, however, the playful 19lb bundle of fur is at the centre of an impassioned debate over whether he should live or die.

Animal rights activists argue that he should be given a lethal injection rather than brought up suffering the humiliation of being treated as a domestic pet.

“The zoo must kill the bear,” said spokesman Frank Albrecht. “Feeding by hand is not species-appropriate but a gross violation of animal protection laws.”

[...]

They argue that current treatment of the cub is inhumane and could cause him future difficulties interacting with fellow polar bears. “They cannot domesticate a wild animal,” added Ruediger Schmiedel, head of the Foundation for Bears.

How ’bout that? Don’t pay any attention to how happy the little bear looks, snuggling up with his keepers. He cannot be happy, not now and not ever — it would contradict some dogma of these alleged “animal rights” zealots. To allow him to go on living is inherently unfair to him. His is a life better not lived. If this doesn’t put you in mind of arguments applied to human beings in various and sundry circumstances, then you haven’t been paying attention.

Well, as much as this story is generating all kinds of outraged responses, I don’t think we need to worry too much about this particular ursa minor. From the BBC:

Knut has been nurtured by a keeper who has slept by his side, bottle-fed him, and strummed him Elvis Presley songs.

But suggestions the three-month-old should have been put down to stop him becoming emotionally and physically reliant on a human have caused outrage.

“We are keeping Knut,” Berlin zoo’s vet told the BBC. “He’s staying alive.”

The zoo says Knut should be strong enough to make his first public appearance at the end of this week, having amassed an army of fans who have followed his development - from walking to weaning - in the city’s newspapers.

He has already posed for the world-renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz as part of an environmental campaign, and next week is to be the subject of a documentary series by German broadcaster ARD.

It would be nice if societies that can readily appreciate the value of an animal’s life — reduced though it may be from what nature intended by some cruel circumstance — would just as readily appreciate human life in all its variations and stages.

But enough preaching. To those German animal rights activists and would-be-bear-cub-killers, I have one word that they should readily understand: Knuts!

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