Visitors flock to Nuremberg Zoo for latest arrival

WITH all the fanfare of a film premiere or record release, Germany today introduced its latest winsome polar bear cub to a public eager for the first live glimpse of her.

Nuremberg Zoo’s four-month-old Flocke is already famous through videos and photographs.

Flocke, born December 11 and then rejected by her mother, made her public debut before television cameras just as interest in Berlin Zoo’s now fully-grown polar bear sensation, Knut, seems to be waning.

Knut was abandoned by his own mother in 2006 and was raised by zookeepers. He became a franchise, attracting more than a million visitors and inspiring a stuffed-animal, a Vanity Fair cover with Leonardo DiCaprio, a children’s book and even a feature film.

But Knut has gone from roly-poly and cute to chunky and a little dangerous — a transition not lost on Flocke’s keepers who advertised her introduction to the public with posters reading “Knut was yesterday”.

Flocke, German for “flake”, as in snowflake, was taken from her mother in January for hand-rearing after she was seen tossing the cub around her enclosure. The zoo was worried the cub could be killed.

Aware of Knut’s star power, the zoo quickly set up its own polar bear cub website with regular updates: Flocke is a girl; Flocke’s eyes open; Flocke learns to swim; Flocke walks on grass, accompanied with photos and video.

Now about 42lbs (19.1kg), Flocke has been romping around in a private enclosure but will be put on public display from tomorrow.