List of non-fictional bears

Knut, the famous polar bear cub from the Berlin Zoological Garden, in May 2007

The following is a list of non-fictional bears who garnered national or world-wide attention:

Bart the Bear

Main article: Bart the Bear

Bart the Bear was a male Alaskan Kodiak brown bear who appeared in several Hollywood films throughout his career, including The Clan of the Cave Bear, The Bear, and Legends of the Fall.

Little Bart the Bear

Little Bart the Bear is Bart's namesake. Little Bart, born 2000 in Alaska, is another unrelated Kodiak raised by Doug and Lynne Seus. He has appeared in Dr. Dolittle 2, and in an episode of both CSI and Scrubs. He also had a prominent role in the 2004 film Without a Paddle and the 2007 film Into the Wild.

Ben

Main article: Ben (bear)

Ben the bear, named after statesman and founding father Benjamin Franklin, was a companion of American mountain man James "Grizzly" Adams.

Bear 71

Main article: Bear 71

Bear 71 was a grizzly bear in Banff National Park, collared at the age of three and watched her whole life via trail cameras in the park. She is the subject of a 2011 National Film Board of Canada web documentary Bear 71, which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

Bear JJ1/Bruno

Main article: Bear JJ1

In June 2006, a wild bear in Bavaria made headlines. The first brown bear spotted in Southern Germany for a century, Bruno became something of a celebrity inspiring songs, toys and an online game. However, when it became apparent Bruno had killed dozens of sheep and goats, Bavaria's Environment Ministry warned that Bruno posed a serious risk to public safety.

Bruno was shot dead hours after the Bavarian authorities approved a shoot-to-kill policy. His death prompted public outcry; many questioned why a tranquilizer dart had not been used.

Binky

Main article: Binky (polar bear)

Binky was a polar bear who lived at the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage, Alaska. He became famous in the summer of 1994 after mauling several zoo visitors who, disregarding safety bars and signs, got too close to the bear's enclosure. After these attacks, Binky received international news coverage and became a local hero. Binky and cage-mate Nuka died in 1995 of a parasitic infection.

Brody the Bear

Main article: Brody the Bear

Born in January 1995, Brody made his first television appearance at the age of 12 weeks on Good Morning America. Brody has since appeared in numerous films, television shows, commercials and print ads. He has also worked with some of the top wildlife photographers in the United States and appeared on the cover of National Geographic Magazine in July 2001.

Brody and his owner Jeff Watson have appeared before over a million people throughout the United States for educational programs focusing on bears and safety while spending time in bear country hiking, camping, and fishing.

Brumas

Brumas, (born November 1949) was the first baby polar bear to be successfully reared in the United Kingdom. Raised at Regent's Park Zoo in London, she became a major celebrity and was largely responsible for the zoo recording its all-time record annual attendance during 1950. Although a female, it was erroneously reported in the press that Brumas was male, and as such many members of the public believed her to be a "he". The bear's name came from the name of her two keepers, Bruce and Sam. Brumas died in May 1958.

Flocke

Main article: Flocke

Flocke was born in captivity at the Nuremberg Zoo in Nuremberg, Germany on 11 December 2007. The polar bear's name means "Flake" (as in snowflake) in German. After concerns over the cub's safety were raised due to her aggressive mother, Flocke was removed from the other bears in the zoo and raised by hand. She later became a popular tourist attraction at the zoo; her trademarked name and image became the subject of several toys and games, and she was also used to spearhead a publicity campaign for the metropolitan region of Nuremberg. In April 2010, Flocke and another Nuremberg bear, Rasputin, were moved to Marineland in southern France.

Hercules

Main article: Hercules (bear)

In 1980, Scottish wrestling bear Hercules achieved world fame when he escaped from his trainer and owner, Andy Robin. He subsequently became a regular star of British children's television, and appeared in the James Bond film Octopussy. Robin used gentle giant Hercules in his act on the UK wrestling circuit in the late 1970s and early 1980s, regularly drawing audiences of 15 million viewers on ITV's World Of Sport program.

Hope

Famous for being "born on the internet" in 2010 when her birth was broadcast by webcam, Hope and her mother Lily were subjects of a study by professor Lynn Rogers and featured in the BBC documentary The Bear Family & Me. In September 2011 it was reported that Hope was believed to have been shot dead by hunters.

Hotfoot

Main article: Hotfoot

Hotfoot was discovered in the 1950 Capitan Gap forest fire, and became the original incarnation of the 1944 Smokey Bear advertising poster created by the Advertising Council's Rudolph Wendelin.

Inuka

Main article: Inuka

Inuka (Inuit for "Silent Stalker") is a polar bear born in 1990, and one of the mascots of the Singapore Zoo.

Knut

Main article: Knut (polar bear)

Knut was born at the Berlin Zoological Garden on December 5, 2006. His mother Tosca rejected him for unknown reasons, abandoning him and his twin brother (who later died) on a rock in the polar bear compound. Being the size of a guinea pig, Knut spent the first 44 days of his life in an incubator before zoo keeper Thomas Dörflein began hand raising the cub. Knut's need for around-the-clock care required that Dörflein sleep on a mattress next to Knut's night enclosure as well as play with, bathe, and feed him, beginning with a bottle of milk every two hours before graduating at the age of four months to a milk porridge mixed with cat food, vitamins and cod liver. Dörflein also accompanied Knut on his twice daily shows for the public and has appeared in many videos and photographs alongside the cub.

On 23 March 2007, Knut was presented to the public for the first time. Around 400 journalists visited Berlin Zoo on what was dubbed "Knut Day" to report on the cub's first public appearance to a worldwide audience. Despite Der Spiegel reporting on April 30, 2007 that Knut was "steadily getting less cute" as he increased in age, Knut continued to bring in record crowds to the zoo. There were 400,000 guests recorded in August 2007, which was an all time high.

Knut first gained worldwide attention in part due to videos on Youtube that showed his life as a small cub. Since then, Knut has been the subject of several songs, the most successful of which were the singles "Knut is Cute" and "Knut, der kleine Eisbär" (English: "Knut, the little polar bear") by nine-year-old Kitty from Köpenick. A blog with updates about the polar bear is also maintained by a journalist at the regional public broadcaster Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg; it is available in German, English and Spanish. Knut has also been the subject of several DVDs, including one entitled "Knut – Stories from a Polar Bear's Nursery". He also appeared on the March 29, 2007 cover of the German Vanity Fair magazine.

A year later, two additional polar bear cubs born in German zoos attracted worldwide attention, drawing direct comparisons to Knut. Flocke from the Nuremberg Zoo and Wilbaer from Wilhelma were both born in early December 2007. In contrast to Knut and Flocke, however, Wilbaer has stayed under the care of his mother and has therefore not garnered as much attention.

Knut died on March 19, 2011.

Old Ephraim

Main article: Old Ephraim

Old Ephraim was a very large grizzly bear that roamed the Cache National Forest circa 1911–23.

Pipaluk

Pipaluk was the first male polar bear born in captivity in Britain, and, like Brumas, became a major celebrity at Regent's Park Zoo in London during early 1968. His name came from an Inuit term meaning "little one". Pipaluk was moved from London to Poland in 1985 when the Mappin Terraces, which housed the bears, was closed. He died in 1990.

Siku

Main article: Siku (polar bear)

Siku is a male polar bear cub born in November 2011. Abandoned by his mother, who prodced insufficient milk to feed him, he was put into care at the Scandinavian Wildlife Park. A YouTube video of him became an overnight sensation, and invited comparisons with Knut (polar bear).

Voytek

Main article: Wojtek (soldier bear)

Voytek (Polish spelling Wojtek) was a Syrian brown bear which was adopted by a Polish army unit during World War II. He took part in the Battle of Monte Cassino in 1944 by carrying artillery ammunition. After the war, he lived in the Edinburgh Zoo.

Wilbär

Main article: Wilbär

Wilbär is a polar bear born at the Wilhelma Zoo in Stuttgart, Germany in 2007.

Winnipeg the Bear

Main article: Winnipeg the Bear

Winnipeg was a black bear which lived at the London Zoo from 1915 to 1934. She became the mascot of the Fort Garry Horse, a Canadian cavalry regiment, and was named after Winnipeg, Manitoba - the home town of the regiment's veterinarian. Winnipeg is best known today as the inspiration for the character Winnie-the-Pooh in A. A. Milne's classic children's books.

Notable unnamed bears

An old injured bear was tied up in Mississippi as part of a canned hunt for President Theodore Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt refused to shoot the bear, and this event was popularized by cartoonist Clifford Berryman, resulting in the creation of the Teddy bear.

See also

• Bears
• List of bears
• List of fictional bears