Berlin Notes: Undsoweiter

Monday, November 19, 2007

Winter is slowly arriving in Berlin - the last few days have seen the odd flurry of snow (quite unusual for November), and some of it has settled in Knut's enclosure. Click here for pictures.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Knut, the most famous polar bear ever, will be starring in his own film: Potsdam based producers Dokfilm have received €40,000 to make a "docufiction" film about the life and times of the once unbearably cute Knut. The film should be in German cinemas by the end of 2007.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Knut's recovering from his recent injury well, but it looks like he's worked out who was responsible for the injection which knocked him out for x-raying: the moment he saw zoo vet Andreas Ochs he went into a rage, showing the less playful side of the 80kg polar bear. No-one was injured - Knut is now so big that no zoo staff are safe in his enclosure. Even his "foster daddy" Thomas Dörflein now has to feed Knut from the public's side of the cage.

Saturday, September 8, 2007

It's a hard life being the world's most-loved polar bear, and the strain - or rather the sprain - is showing. Knut (now 8kg) appears to have injured his left leg, but after being sedated and x-rayed vets have made certain that no bones are broken. Nevertheless Knut has been given a few days off to recover and is being kept inside, but can go out at any time if he wants to.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Some pictures of Berlin's newest baby elephant are available here.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

The Tierpark has just announced the birth of a baby pachyderm, the 13th since 1999. Mother is Bibi. The African elephant calf - as yet unnamed - was born without complications weighing 96 kilos and is doing well. It is likely to be presented to the public tomorrow (Friday).

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Knut is slowly being weaned off his baby food: in the early days he was fed a mixture of milk and dog / cat food, now he's eating a mush of milk, meat, cod-liver oil and vitamins. The Zoo has now announced that he'll be getting more raw meat and fish over the next couple of months, by which time his diet will be the normal polar bear adult diet.

Knut now weighs in at about 65kg (I don't know how much that is in pounds, but it's about 10kg than I myself weigh).

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

No, not the U-Bahn, but a YouTube clone called WatchBerlin especially for Germany's federal capital. Watch video clips made by normale Berliners, and also special clips made by some Berliner Promis (celebrities) such as Wladimir Kaminer.

A nice idea, although the site is not as easy to use as YouTube and on a stable 1Mb/s DSL connection the videos don't play smoothly. Users of Apple's Safari browser may find the the site doesn't work properly - and the videos are not playable in Linux.

Link: http://www.watch-berlin.net/

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

It had to happen some time: Knut is getting bigger by the day, and Berlin's Zoo has decided it's time for him to get used to life without humans. Since Sunday he's in his enclosure on his own, and the daily "show" with keeper Thomas Doerflein has ended. It came as a bit of a shock for Knut too: he spent much of the time searching the enclosure for signs of human life, but eventually gave up and dived into the water.

Fans of cute baby bears shouldn't be discouraged though: next door you can see Malaysian bear "Ernst", who's just half the size of Knut.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

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The latest item of Knut paraphanelia has just been announced: now you can buy an official Knut Medal, produced by the State Berlin Mint (Staatliche Münze Berlin). It features an image of Knut when he was about three months old on the front (with a small logo saying "Respect Habitats. Knut", and the German State's heraldic eagle bearing the coats of arms of the 16 German federal states on the back.

The medal costs €10, of some of which goes directly to the Berlin Zoo. Unfortunately it only seems to be available directly from the Mint's own shops in Germany.