“He used to be the star of Berlin Zoo”. With this declaration, Berlin’s mayor, Klaus Wowereit, put an end in one more chapter of the history of zoos as entertainment center for humans – instead of serving biodiversity and becoming conservation and recuperation centers of threatened species.

Polar bear Knut died abruptly, just like many animals die in the zoos, where they are submitted to public harassment and a life completely different of their nature. It was talked about several diseases, but the truth is that animals should not be kept in zoos to human entertainment. They are – not only great primates – intelligent beings, who have their own habits and who must be respected and preserved in their intimacy; they are beings who were born to live in their habitat, not imprisoned in small enclosures, with hour defined by humans to eat, sleep and be exhibited to the public.

The politicians, like Berlin’s mayor and a former mayor of Sorocaba, who declared that chimpanzees did not think nor could decide their destiny, represent the retrograde spirit of human society, as long as they only think in humans and not in the world as a whole.

The death of Knut, like hundreds of alerts of mistreating in zoos all over the world, leads to the need of the discussion of the role of zoos of leisure and entertainment of humans, which should be questioned and changed, so they have a true role of conservation and education in our society.

Knut was a fake star created by humans and decided, by his own, to leave this world he never understood in front of everyone.

Dr. Pedro A. Ynterian
President, GAP Project International