Berlin - It's official: Berlin's star polar bear Knut has a girlfriend, and on Tuesday zoo officials said she was ready to meet the public. Gianna, a three-year-old female polar bear from Munich, is to appear from Wednesday in the bear enclosure at Berlin Zoo. The bears were being kept separate while they got used to each other, zookeepers said.
Knut and Gianna had already had a good sniff of each other at a fence separating their pens, zoo staff said. It would be a while before the couple could expect offspring, as they are not yet sexually mature.
The news came exactly one year after the death of Knut's human carer Thomas Doerflein, who raised Knut by bottle after the cub was rejected by his mother.
Visitors paid their respects on Tuesday, leaving flowers, poems and photos in memory of Doerflein, who died of a heart attack aged 44.
More than eight million people have visited Berlin's famous polar bear since spring 2007. Internet: www.zoo-berlin.de/en
