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Berlin Zoo announced Tues­day that Knut the world-​famous polar bear, who was hand-​raised in the Zoo after his mother rejected him as a new­born and died at the age of four after an epilep­tic seizure, will be immor­tal­ized in bronze.

The bronze sculp­ture to be cre­ated by the Ukrain­ian artist Josef Tabach­nyk will show Knut as a cub ‘chill­ing’ on a rock. “Knut — The Dreamer,” has been selected from over 40 com­pet­ing entries, and will cost € 15,000, funded entirely by donations.

Knut: birth 05.12.2006, death 19.03.2011

Many mini sculp­tures will find its way to people’s home, of course, as do many fluffy polar bear toys from the zoo shop, already. There­fore, besides a ges­ture to all around the world whose hearts were stolen by the play­ful polar bear cub, the sculp­ture will gen­er­ate the ever so needed money for the Zoo. This has been one of the accu­sa­tions dur­ing the period Knut was still alive. That such a large car­ni­vore species should never have been raised by human hands and kept alive, because it was a vio­la­tion of ani­mal pro­tec­tion leg­is­la­tion, and that Knut was only there to raise money.

(Sources: Reuters, 17.01.2012)