By RIA Novosti
Berlin : Flocke, the celebrity female polar bear at Germany’s Nuremberg City Zoo, was given meat for the first time on Wednesday, the zoo’s vet told journalists.
The cub received her first piece of veal on a bone after she turned three months.
“Flocke is now old enough to be given a bone,” Bernhard Neuroh said. “For normal development and teeth hygiene baby predators should regularly crunch bones.”
He added that zoo experts have made a new menu for the cub, who now receives about 1.5 liters of special milk and a bowl of dog food.
Flocke, the four-week old baby bear, was removed from her pen on January 9 after zoo officials feared she would be eaten alive by her mother who showed signs of rejecting her. Two other baby cubs at the zoo were eaten by their mother Vilma.
It was earlier reported that after keepers began bottle-feeding the cub, Flocke showed symptoms of an intestinal infection. After a course of antibiotics, the little bear showed no signs of a serious infection, and vets gave permission for the treatment to be stopped on January 21.
The polar bear cub now weighs 12.2 kg (27 lbs) and her keepers take her for a walk in the open air when the zoo is closed to visitors. However, vets say that little Flocke is scheduled to be moved to an outdoor enclosure in April.
The zoo hopes that Flocke will become as famous as Knut, a male cub from the Berlin Zoo, who was also abandoned by his mother, a 20-year-old traumatized circus bear, Tosca, shortly after his birth in December 2006.
Knut quickly became a symbol of Germany’s global warming campaign and even Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted her fondness for the bear.
The bear, whose official logo has earned millions for the Berlin Zoo, has his own blog and a TV show. He became a film star when the “Knut and Friends” movie was premiered on March 2.