Knut, der kleine Eisbär

The world's most famous polar bear is retiring from the limelight.

Fans of cuddly Knut will no longer be able to see him play with his keeper twice a day because he has become too dangerous.

The bear made his first public appearance at Berlin Zoo in March as a 20lb cub.

The boisterous seven-month-old now weighs 110lbs and the zoo is concerned about the safety of his keeper.

Zoo keeper Thomas Dörflein said: "This doesn't mean that I will never play with Knut again; it just means there are no fixed times anymore... I am always there for him.

"Knut is still a child; he needs me."



If you feel like singing along, here are the words:

Knut, der ist ein Kuschelbär
Doch hat keine Mama mehr
Trotzdem ist er frech und froh
Und der Star im Zoo
Kleiner Racker ganz in weiß
Mit vier Pfoten kuschelweich
Alle hab’n den Knut so lieb
Schön, dass es dich gibt
Knut, Knut
Kleiner Eisbär aus’m Zoo
Knut, Knut
Dir geht’s richtig gut
Knut, du bist ein Kuschelbär
Du wirst immer putziger
Laufen kannst du auch schon gut
Weiter so, nur Mut
Nuckelfläschchen in den Mund
Trinke fein, das ist gesund
Danach musst du schlafen gehen
Kleiner Knut, schlaf schön
Knut, Knut
Kleiner Eisbär aus’m Zoo
Knut, Knut
Dir geht’s richtig gut
Knut, du süßer Kuschelbär
Dich zu mögen ist nicht schwer
Streichelt man dich auf dem Bauch
Dann freust du dich auch
Deine Zähnchen sind noch klein
Kräftig beißen, das muss sein
Dann wirst du bald groß und stark
Ja, das ist doch klar

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Ex-circus performer Tosca the polar bear gave birth to Knut and his brother on 5 December 2006. Tosca rejected Knut and his brother. After four days, the brother died and Knut was separated from his mother by zoo workers. He was the first polar bear to have been born and survive in Berlin Zoo for over 30 years.

Being the size of a guinea pig and facing an almost certain mauling by his mother, he spent the first 44 days of his life in an incubator before zoo keeper Thomas Dörflein began handraising the cub. Knut's need for around-the-clock care required that Dörflein sleep on a mattress next to Knut's sleeping enclosure as well as feed and accompany him on his shows for the public.On 23 March 2007, Knut was presented to the public for the first time. Around 400 journalists visited Berlin Zoo to report on Knut's first public appearance to a worldwide audience.

Not only the zoo has profited from the attention surrounding Knut: several companies offer Knut-related products from ringtones to cuddly toys. Candy company Haribo decided to release a raspberry-flavored Cuddly Knut sweet in April 2007 and has promised the Berlin Zoo a share of the profits. One company even made Knut themed cough-drops. Knut was also the subject of several songs. The most successful were the single "Knut is Cute" and the song by 9-year-old Kitty from Köpenick titled "Knut, der kleine Eisbär". Knut also appeared on the March 29, 2007 cover of the German Vanity Fair magazine.

On May 1, 2007 it was announced that New York-based Turtle Pond Publications and the Berlin Zoo signed a deal for the publishing rights to Knut with the hopes of raising awareness of global warming issues.

License to Kill

Tom Rush, wrote "A Cowboy's Paean", which is on his "Trolling for Owls" album. The image is of the Druid Peak Pack in Yellowstone, and the photographer is Dan Hartman. Check out his work at the Hartman Gallery

Go on out and shoot yourself some coyotes,
Makes a man feel good, Lord, it makes a man feel proud!
Go on out and shoot yourself some coyotes,
One for Mother, one for Country, one for God.
Well, if you’re having trouble with the truck, or with the woman,
Maybe them kids are screwin’ up in school,
If the cows are actin’ smarter than the cowboy,
You gotta show the world you ain’t nobody’s fool.
Go on out and shoot yourself some coyotes,
Makes a man feel good, Lord, it makes a man feel proud!
Go on out and shoot yourself some coyotes,
One for Mother, one for Country, one for God.
I got my 30.30 and my eyes are 20/20,
I got my M16 and my trusty .44,
I got my 10-80 and my IQ’s double digits!
Boys, this is gonna be an all-out war.
I got my field rations straight from old Jack Daniel’s,
Hank, Jr.’s on the 8 track in my 4X4,
And I’d shoot a thousand coyotes if I could only just find one,
‘cause, boys, that’s what God made coyotes for.
Go on out and shoot yourself some coyotes,
Makes a man feel good, Lord, it makes a man feel proud!
Go on out and shoot yourself some coyotes,
One for Mother, one for Country, one for God.
So you never mind them Eastern, liberal, environmental … Democrat sissies,
Vegetarians are just a passing fad,
Just tip your hat and wish ‘em “via con … carne,”
Then go on out and make ‘em hopping mad!
Go on out and shoot yourself some coyotes,
Makes a man feel good, Lord, it makes a man feel proud!
Go on out and shoot yourself some coyotes,
One for Mother, one for Country, one for God.

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In related news, the Bush Administration has issued a disastrous "License to Kill" plan that could trigger the extermination of half the gray wolves in Wyoming and Idaho, starting as early as October. The gray wolf population is still classified as an endangered species, although it has staged a welcome and dramatic comeback from the brink of extinction. Bush is circumventing his own agency's process for delisting a species.
In preparation for these mass killings, the government has already purchased planes and helicopters capable of gunning down entire packs of wolves in minutes. Their goal: To immediately kill up to 700 wolves in Greater Yellowstone and central Idaho.
The administration wants to be able to kill wolves anywhere that elk herd numbers may be affected by wolves. It is focusing on areas where big game numbers are "below management objectives". But those few cases of declines in elk herds have been caused by a combination of factors including habitat destruction, drought and human hunting -- not just by wolves. And in most areas of the northern Rockies, elk numbers are at all-time highs.
Wolves once thrived in much of the lower 48 states. Today, they reside in only five percent of their former range in the U.S. If there is one place in the U.S. where they should be allowed to flourish, it is in and around Yellowstone -- the nation's oldest park -- and the remote Selway Bitterroot ecosystem in central Idaho.

Shadow Mountain

Part memoir, part meditation, part love story, Shadow Mountain is an impassioned commentary on how our connection to the wild can rescue or destroy us.

While completing an undergraduate research thesis, Renée Askins was given a two-day-old wolf pup to raise. Named Natasha, the pup, was destined for a life in captivity. Through her work with Natasha and her siblings, Askins developed a deep, fierce love for the species. On the day Natasha was unexpectedly taken from her and sent to a remote research facility, Askins made a promise to the wolf pup: "Your life, your sacrifice, will make a difference." And it did.

Renée Askins spent the next fifteen years in the grueling effort to restore wolves to Yellowstone, where they had been exterminated by man some seventy years before. The campaign's popularity with the American public aroused the rage of the western ranching community and their powerful political allies in Washington. She endured death threats, years of contentious debate and political manipulations, and heartbreaking setbacks when colonizing wolves were illegally killed. But in March 1995, Askins witnessed the realization of her mission when wolves were released into their native home in Yellowstone–the first wolves to be found there in almost a century.

A born storyteller, Renée Askins offers moving and vibrant examples of the reciprocity that exists between man and animal. And, like a wolf in the shadows, Askins circles the issues surrounding the conundrum of embracing wild nature. Shadow Mountain explores the wildness present within animals and humans, urging us to recognize both its light and its shadow.

Renee currently lives in California with her daughter, her husband, Tom Rush, three dogs, four parakeets and two lovebirds.

Renée Askins website

The Evil in a Blade of Grass

five apparitions are building a moth in the dark
they are nailing wings to fog wings to white powder
they are mixing milk and sulphur in an iron bowl
for its heart they have made the sound of a carousel
coming to a full stop
for its lungs they have made the sound of a train
filling with snowin one stone they've found enough language
in one shadow enough thoughtthey are building a small evil in the dark
a blood drop a flake of dry skin
a demon with a shawl of fine lace
sewn into its backnot the amount of evil a man has
but the evil contained in a blade of grass
a real evil
a moth flying out of a sparrow's throat
and into the evening air

Don Domanski, "Devildom"
from "Hammerstroke", 1986

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To read Don Domanski's poem, Devildom, about an evil as elusive as fog, an evil made of wings and white powder, stops us short. The poem takes on a topicality we don't generally look for from Domanski, also the author of The Cape Breton Book of the Dead; he is more rooted in the metaphysical realm than in the daily news.

Domanski examines evil here, as part of the fabric of the real, as the yin-yang dance partner of good. In Devildom, evil is built into the world, not in a single moment of creation, but continuously, and on a modest scale.

Why a moth? Perhaps precisely because it's so small and fragile. But there is also the imagery of the Death's Head Moth, the "fine lace shawl" on its back revealing a skull. That a harmless creature should fly through the world tattooed like a bottle of poison may be Nature's version of irony.

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Don Domanski has been fortunate to be blessed with a few canny critics. He's been called a seer and a necromancer of words, "a cross between Robert Bly, Ted Hughes, and the Brothers Grimm," and the poems have been variously described as "earthy and astral, dark and buoyant," "half fairytale and half flesh." There is something consistent in these descriptions; they indicate the marriage of opposites stirring at the core of his poetry, what one critic has called "the struggle to bring the cosmos and its citizens to us whole."

Domanski's poetry, when read with attention and openness, traverses the ordinary and the extraordinary, illuminating both. He takes our daily objects and experiences, and by carefully relating them to each other, in unexpected contexts, transforms our entire version of reality. But this isn't magic. It's metaphor.

Rilke's poem, The Reader, captures the uncanny way words on a page can create a world so rich and involving it's like experiencing an alternate reality.

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Don Domanski was born and raised on Cape Breton Island and now lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He has published eight books of poetry. Two of his books (Wolf Ladder, 1991, and Stations of the Left Hand, 1994) were short-listed for the Governor General's Award for Poetry. In 1999 he won the Canadian Literary Award for Poetry.

Northern Poetry Review