Call me 'Fritz': German polar bear cub finally has name
February 1, 2017
It's official: this little cub at Berlin's Tierpark zoo has been christened 'Fritz.' The fluffy baby polar bear will be presented to the public next month.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/Tierpark Berlin
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Baby polar bear from Berlin finally has a name
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Germany's new favorite polar bear cub has been given a suitably German name.
After sorting through more than 10,000 names submitted by the public, a panel christened the fluffy white cub "Fritz."
Berlin's Tierpark zoo, where Fritz lives, announced the name at midnight over Twitter on Tuesday.
The Berlin zoo, in conjunction with a number of media partners, called on the public to send in prospective names for the young bear. Berlin radio broadcaster radioBerlin 88,8 said on Monday it had received more than 2,000 shortlisted names, with suggestions even coming in from Sweden, the US and Canada.
Cute times two: baby twins for gorillas, pandas and co.
Baby animals are great visitor attractions for zoos - especially when they arrive in pairs, as happened in Frankfurt, where a gorilla had twins. But two babies have a smaller chance of survival than one.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Only one gorilla twin left in Frankfurt
Everyone at Frankfurt Zoo was ecstatic when gorilla Dian gave birth to twins, which is rare for great apes. She lovingly took care of both babies, which is not a given among animals, where the mother often neglects the weaker twin. But the smaller gorilla didn't survive: it died two days after birth. And Dian continued to carry around both babies.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/W. Faust
Cotton-top tamarins in Duisburg
Duisburg Zoo has also greeted two little monkeys this year: one of their cotton-top tamarins had twins. It isn't as rare as with great apes: this father carried twins around his Duisburg enclosure in 2012. The name cotton-top comes from the signature white hair the monkeys sprout on the back of their heads and necks.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/H. Ossiger
Okara and Orya from Zurich
If you want to visit the snow leopards at Zurich Zoo in Switzerland, where these were born in May 2014, you'll need to hurry: when they are one-and-a-half years old, they will leave for new homes. Okara will move to Zoo Plock in Poland and Orya will move to the Milwaukee County Zoo in Wisconsin, USA.
Image: imago/EQ Images
Polar bear stars in Munich
The birth of Nela and Nobby in 2013 was a media event, and when the two took their first walk around the enclosure, hundreds of people were there to watch. Little polar bear Knut turned into a cash-cow for the Berlin Zoo in 2006 - and the twins at Munich's "Tierpark Hellabrunn" outnumber him. They, too, leave for a new home in 2016, though.
Image: Reuters
Red panda times two
When it comes to the red panda, or red bear-cat, twins are common. Kit and Kitty, the babies seen here, were born at Berlin Zoo in 2011. This year, two zoos have seen red panda twins already: Chicago Zoo in June and Salzburg Zoo in July. With red pandas, baby twins have a good chance of surviving into adulthood.
Image: Getty Images/S. Gallup
Sad fate for great panda twin
Great pandas are endangered and reluctant to mate - it's an unfortunate combination. So panda twins sound like great news. But things don't always go as smoothly as with these two young ones at Beijing Zoo. At the end of August, panda Mei Xiang gave birth to twins at the Smithsonian Zoo in Washington DC. The weaker baby died after just four days. The mother had rejected it, which is common.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
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The seven-person jury consisted of the zoo's director, Andreas Knieriem, the zookeeper responsible for polar bears, Florian Sicks, a selected reader of the "Berliner Zeitung" newspaper, a reader of the "Berliner Kurier" newspaper, a listener and presenter from radioBerlin and the head of Berlin broadcaster rbb media.
In the end, the panel chose a name that was quintessentially German and true to its Berlin surroundings.
"I'm delighted with the name," Knieriem said. "It's short and snappy, and foreign tourists visiting the zoo will easily be able to remember it."
This isn't the first time Germany has found itself infatuated with a cuddly baby polar bear. In 2006, polar bear legend Knut stole German hearts and went on to become a worldwide mass media phenomenon.
Fritz was born on November 3, 2016. Last month, the zoo was able to determine that the young cub was a boy.
The zoo plans to present him to the public in March.
