I saw a photo of a mother polar bear holding her baby in her mouth which linked to this story on Huffington Post. The photo with the mother and baby polar bear, had the word "f*g" and an arrow drawn on it in white letters. The word "f*g" was spelled out and is an extremely hateful, inexcusable word to demonize gay people. The photo was not only hosted on the huffingtonpost.com website, but had a huffingtonpost label on the side of it.

To everyone working at Huffington Post:
It is not OK to use hateful language like that to demonize gay people. Even if it is in jest, using the "f*g" or "f*gg*t" words is no different than using the N word to refer to black people. You are losing me as a regular visitor to your website if this behavior continues.

Gay jokes, f*g jokes, or any kind of racial or ethnic jokes meant to demonize people have no place on a website that is supposed to be progressive.

The photo with the f*g word on it is not at all acceptable.

Sincerely,
Dennis reed
Austin, Texas

I don't think the mother would have hurt her cub. I think the zoo wants another Knut to exploit.

They usually look a little scary to me. I guess I am in the minority on that.

Look at the second video. I want one.

http://www.nuernberg.de/internet/eisbaer/videos.html

It's unfortunate that no one really talks about the effect of captivity on the natural behavior of wild animals.

Polar bears, in particular, keep their babies tucked away in safety of dens and never leave their babies unless they have to go hunting for food. Babies don't accompany their mothers on these trips until they have grown enough fat to keep them protected from extremely cold temperatures that are part of their natural climate.

Baby polar bears are completely and utterly helpless. (This baby's eyes haven't even opened) Because of this vulnerability to the elements and to predators, mothers move their babies if they sense danger. In this case, it seems that the mother bear sensed a threat (nosy photographer trying to get pictures of baby) and was trying to find a new and safe place for her baby. Since mother bear lives in a small enclosure at a zoo, there was no place to take her baby.

In the long run, the zookeepers did well to take the baby away from the mother since the mother would likely have unintentionally harmed her baby. But the reality is that this happened only because this bear was in a completely unnatural habitat.

Hopefully this adorable little bear will help open the eyes and hearts of many humans to the plight of her relatives in the wild. We need to save the polar bears because they have as much right to live as we do. The world would be a terrible place if we were the only animals left. We too are cute when we are little but can become destroyers when we grow up. We are the most dangerous animal on this planet.

I hope the mother polar bear was indeed dangerous to the pup, instead of the zoo wanting another polar pup to exploit.

I'm not saying they exploited Knut because there were those who wanted to kill Knut, but I hope taking pups from their mothers is not going to become the zoo's new habit.

Seeing all that just makes ya feel all warm and fuzzy with happyness doesn't it? :)