I don’t think this happened because of Knut, this type of thing happens all over the place… like the jerks in San Fran sitting on the edge of the tiger enclosure teasing the tigers.

Yeah, those guys weren’t very bright. That being said, I was surprised to hear something along the lines of “Well, they were teasing the tiger, so it got upset and got out,” from the zoo’s PR people.

Zoo executive to engineer: “So this design will keep the tigers in the enclosure, right?”
Engineer: “Yes. Unless the tiger is very upset and really wants to get out, of course.”
Executive: “Errr… Could we design it so that only calm tigers who aren’t out for blood can escape?”

And what was with the calls for the tiger to be destroyed after the attack? It’s a TIGER. What do you expect it to do? I’d be more inclined to destroy a defective tiger for not attacking people…

On the other side this may have been an attempted suicide. Getting lunched by a polar bear would be a good passive-aggressive way of getting notice and attempting to obscure both shame and blame.

Death by cop is a similar form but it seldom gets much notice and getting munched by a polar bear does have a novel ‘surrender to nature’ aspect that might attract a certain sort of person.

It is interesting to note that she does seem rather enthusiastic about getting back out. Had she not thrashed around so much she might not have been nipped as often. The bears certainly don’t seem to be actively treating her like a highly desired food. More like a new and interesting toy. If they wanted her dead she would be dead.

It’s not because they think the animals are cuddly, it’s because they think they’re somehow superior.

…and probably because of some hard drinking.

People living in the developed world are so isolated from nature these days that most have no idea we’re not the top of the food chain.

One out of two ain’t… well, yeah, it probably sucked.