Bear - 1, Germany - 0

(Pictured left - living bear; right - dead bear)

It doesn’t need to be said that Germany and the bear have a chequered history. Only last year, Bruno – bear and father of six - was gunned down in a revenge attack by a group of Bavarian huntsmen for crimes against humanity. But as we well know one man’s war criminal is another bear’s freedom fighter. Germany has been widely criticised for it’s stance on bears, having killed 100% of wild bears found on German soil since 1835.

Nevertheless, a great victory was won for bears this week when Berlin Zoo vowed not to execute Knut, an abandoned polar bear cub, despite calls from animal rights activists that he be killed for his own good. It was feared that Knut would become too reliant on his trainer, and eventually, in a fit of barely contained animal madness, devour every creature in the zoo including staff and patrons. But the public rallied around the adorable bearling and the zoo vowed to keep him until he is old enough to cope with being moved, and then ship him off to another zoo, obviously keen to avoid a potential massacre. Knut, for his own part seemed oblivious to this and merely looked on with murder in his eyes.

Why were ze Germans so willing to spare Knut when they so easily eliminated Bruno? The answer seems to lie in the power of cute. Knut is a very photogenic animal. Small, skinny, with milky white fur, he looks more like a lamb than a bear, while by contrast Bruno was a huge, stinking, filthy brute who would sooner slay you than look at you. In addition to this, the fact that Knut is a white bear surely appeals to the German’s barely-concealed Aryan pride.

What’s my policy on bears? Positive obviously. Anything that can eat a bus full of schoolchildren whole and makes a dump the size of a cat is good in my mind. Germany, by sparing Knut has a ticking time-bomb on its hands. When Knut is old enough, he will escape in a maelstrom of death, and take his deadly revenge on the German people for the martyrdom of his forebear (ho ho ho). The streets will run red with Teutonic blood and once again will the bear’s supremacy be asserted. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.