Knut helping?

Although Germans say they can8217;t think of a comparable animal celebrity, Washingtonians can. Having stood in the hour-long line just to see the National Zoo8217;s comparably cute baby panda, Tai Shan, gnaw on some frozen fruit juice, I understand that human obsession with baby animals knows no borders.

Still, some further explanation is required. Why panda bears and polar bears? The National Zoo has bred baby cheetahs and the Berlin Zoo has bred more than one rhinoceros, but famous photographers and the international press corps were not rushing to take their pictures. Surely a dose of anthropomorphism is partly responsible: Baby bears simply look human in a way that baby rhinos do not. So, too, is the newspaper-buying public8217;s immediate need to read something cheerful. One German journalist pointed out that Knut8217;s first public appearance upstaged UN sanctions on Iran and the latest Kremlin ban of its political opponents! But Tai Shan and Knut also arouse deep feelings because they fit neatly into narratives about pollution, endangered species and, in the case of the baby polar bear, global warming. After 30 years of unsuccessful attempts to breed a panda in captivity, Tai Shan8217;s birth appeared to be a triumph of American veterinary science over the Chinese farmers who cut down their bamboo trees. Knut8217;s survival 8212; despite maternal rejection, the scorn of animal rights groups and melting polar ice caps 8212; is no less uplifting.

The truth, of course, is that both baby bears symbolise not success but failure. The difficulty of breeding pandas in zoos and captive polar bears8217; rejection of their young are actually proof that large mammals are profoundly unsuited to cages. Their captivity is justified only because they are endangered in the wild, yet it is unlikely that either bear will live in the wild anyway.

While we have not 8220;saved8221; the endangered polar bears by saving Knut, his existence allows a lot of people to feel better about themselves anyway: Purchasing a Knut T-shirt has already become a form of anti-global-warming activism. And if you believe the British philosopher Roger Scruton, who has written extensively and critically about the animal rights movement, this isn8217;t entirely innocent behaviour. Projecting human feelings onto animals inevitably leads to 8220;playing at God,8221; and allows us to imagine 8220;that we confer the greatest benefit on those whom we patronise.8221; He points out, for example, that although the passivity of a pet rabbit encourages 8220;its owner8217;s utterly fallacious view of himself as the kindly provider,8221; the rabbit8217;s life is sheer mental torture.

Although I8217;m not advocating death for either of them, it8217;s hard to say whether Knut or Tai Shan is really 8220;happy8221; in captivity, whatever 8220;happy8221; means for a bear. It8217;s equally hard to say whether their miraculous births will ever improve the deteriorating natural environment of their wild cousins, let alone prevent global warming. It is not at all hard to guess, however, that most 6-year-olds of your acquaintance will soon be demanding a stuffed Knut toy for their 7th birthday. Buy one if you will 8212; but don8217;t imagine you8217;ll help save the polar bears by doing so.

The Washington Post