Comments on: Knut is Dead

By: mark

mark — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 12:27:56 +0000

Would love to compare IQ’s ??? punctuation ??? maybe all you know.

By: ulf_der_freak

ulf_der_freak — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 10:59:01 +0000

Knut was murdered! Look here (german language)

By: tides

tides — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 10:33:37 +0000

It is CERTAINLY an epileptic seizure, in fact a complex partial seizure as typically seen in temporal lobe epilepsy patients. The signs/seizure semiology is EXACTLY what you would expect, incuding the prolonged running in circles, the jerking of the paws and the “rearing and falling” at the end. He was just a bit unlucky to fall and keep seizing in the water 🙁

By: astrid

astrid — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 09:52:17 +0000

Controversial story. What I do know of the facts: zookeeper who he grew very close to was forbidden to continue seeing him as Knut got bit older. The bear would howl for him when he smelled him nearby. This of course upset Thomas – who died of a heart attack not long after. Knut met Gianna, she was taken away from him. It seems he was then with 3 females who harassed him. Why was a bear who brought in so much money for a zoo not given more personal consideration.

By: TBnSuch

TBnSuch — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 19:05:37 +0000

@Mark: What?

Does anything make a written statement seem a little more crazy than a complete lack of punctuation? Or is that just me?

By: mark

mark — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 17:49:47 +0000

its barium from chem trails wake up if they send his hair out to check for barium it will be there birds animals of all types will die from barium they lie about spraying look up and wake up it starts with small things and then it will work its way to us soon 1.5 years

By: Rhys

Rhys — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 02:49:00 +0000

My dog suffers from Epileptic episodes and this looks remarkably similar to those. I’ve seen my dog exhibit similar behaviour when a seizure is coming. It certainly looks like a seizure at the end there, you can see his jaws open and start to spasm along with his legs before he topples over. I’d say he had a grand mal seizure and drowned. 🙁 poor bugger.

By: Inky

Inky — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 20:21:30 +0000

That was AWFUL to watch.

It looks like he was having a really bad pain in his abdomen, maybe more on his left side? His hind foot kept trying to scratch it and he kept circling around on the same side.

The circling and head shaking initially made me think neuro, but his pauses really make me think that he was in immense pain, and his motor skills were pretty deliberate until the last bit.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 16:51:12 +0000

I just want to say for the record (and I’ll happily, or rather, indifferently, be proven wrong or not) that I don’t buy the epileptic theory at all. I have seen animals do something like this … the seizure like shaking of the hind limbs … when shot with a projectile, though, I admit, not exactly like this. An aneurysm or something along those lines could cause a seizure, but that is not the same thing as epilepsy.

Don’t forget that he walked in circles for quite some time before the seizure started. That looks to me like he was experiencing pain somewhere in his body. A quadruped going in circles like that is roughly like a human clutching its abdomen or torso and doubling over in pain and/or rocking in pain.

All this leads me to think massive coronary or something along those lines.

We’ll know son enough.

By: TBnSuch

TBnSuch — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 16:09:43 +0000

daedalus2u: Is this a commonly seen in polar bears in captivity?

Will have to wait for the autopsy for anything definitive, though the siezure/drowning sounds plausible (with my limited knowledge)