Horoscope: ‘The Knut Show’ is over, famous polar bear dies

I felt really sad this morning to hear about the death of Knut the polar bear. I wrote a blog post about Knut in 2006 – when there was much debate over whether it was ethical to hand rear him.  Knut died on Saturday afternoon – in his enclosure in front of the approximately 700 people who had come there to look at him. The horoscope of Knut – born 5 December 2006 (time unknown, 12.00 chart) – Berlin – died 19 March 2011, Berlin.

Knut was born and died on a Full Moon. Saturday’s so called Super Full Moon, with the Sun an Moon also square the Moon’s Nodes, picked up on Knut’s Pluto – in Sagittarius. Somehow, I can’t help but feel happy for Knut. He was a Saggy Bear who  really deserved space and new hunting grounds.

Though the intentions of the Berlin Zoo to hand rear Knut were undoubtedly good -he became a million euro business. With so many people wanting to see him, the conditions he must have been living under were surely unbearable. In fact as far back as 2008 – his keeper expressed concern about Knut’s behaviour.

The keeper who hand fed Knut and even slept with him in the early stages of his life Thomas Dörflein – died equally as suddenly of a heart attack – at aged just 44 on 22 September 2008. Dörflein’s life too was changed dramatically through his relationship with Knut. He received mountains of love letters, and women seemed to be permanently camped outside his Berlin appartment. What price fame? It must have been a painful wrench for both keeper and bear when in early 2008 – Dorflein finally distanced himself from Knut who had quite simply become to big to play with. to The Horoscope of Thomas Dörflein:

The planet that rose before the Sun on the day of Knut’s birth – was Jupiter in its own sign Sagittarius. Knut was massive in every sense of the word. “He proved to be a magnet for visitors at the zoo. For the first time in the its 164-year history, it attracted more than 3 million people in 2007, when the “Knut Show” played out daily, a 27-percent increase over the previous year. The surge of visitors resulted in record profits of €6.8 million ($10 million) for the zoo.”

However, if we take financial profit out of the equation – and think of Jupiter as the planet that wants to teach us something, then clearly there is an important lesson to learn from Knut’s story. On reflection – I think the decision to hand rear this bear was the wrong one. Polar bears do not fare well in general in zoo’s. Steve Connor, writing in the Independent: “The long-term future of polar bears, threatened by the shrinking sea ice of the warming Arctic, was not helped by the short, captive life of Knut.” This is it exactly. We need to re-think our policy with regard to the conservation of polar bears! Zoo’s are not the place for them!