3199 Knut

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

You can do something in an instant that will give you heartache for life.

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I guess everyone has heard by now that Knut, the polar bear at the Berlin zoo, has died unexpectedly, reason unknown. (If you don't know about Knut, Google him, or check here: http://cuteoverload.com/2011/03/19/knut-a-retrospective/.)

Knut was not exactly an orphan. He had been rejected by his zoo mother, and had been raised by humans at the zoo. He was cute and playful, and quite the sensation. But as he got bigger, he had to be separated from his adoptive human parents. He was four years old, an adolescent, when he died.

Animal rights folks are all up in arms, claiming that he was obviously depressed at the lack of the human contact he'd been used to, and that's what caused his death. The zoo officials disagree, saying that he was perfectly happy and playful.

Me? I'm not at all surprised he died, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with his having being inappropriately raised by humans.

Nature loves babies. It's built into animal mothers that they will care for their babies. That his mother abandoned him at birth is highly significant.

Nature will abandon babies only if the babies cannot be raised to the point where they themselves can have babies. Nature is realistic and won't spend energy and resources on a cause doomed to failure. The reasons can be that the environmental conditions aren't right, in that there is danger, famine, stress of confinement, whatever makes it difficult to raise the young, or there is something inherently wrong with the baby itself such that it will be unlikely to live to reproductive age. Animal mothers can sense something wrong, wrongness that may not even show up in medical tests.

Knut's mother rejected him. To me, this means there was a good chance there was something wrong with Knut.

And that's why I'm not surprised he did not live to reproduce.

Nature is very stern about stuff like that.
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