Knut

Knut, the world famous polar bear. When he was born, he was the size of a "snowball" (well, a guinea pig), but sadly his mother rejected him for an unknown reason and left him and his brother on a rock in the enclosure :(. His brother died of an infection 4 days later. The zoo keepers scooped Knut out of the enclosure using a fishing net, and he was hand reared, with one zoo keeper in particular, Thomas Dorflein taking on the "parent" role :) Dorflein hand fed Knut and even slept in the same cage when he was particularly tiny.*
He is the first baby polar cub to survive infancy in the Berlin zoo in over 30 years. Vanity Fair Germany ran an issue with him on the cover and the headline "Knut, the next superstar for Germany"





*Some animal rights groups objected to this rearing of Knut, even one very extreme person saying Knut would have been better off dying than being raised like that by humans.