EcoWorldly

Meet Flocke, a new polar bear cub at the Nuremberg Zoo in Germany.

Her name means “snowflake.” Since her birth in December, photos and videos from the zoo have been overloading the public with cuteness, stirring up “Flocke fever.”

Still, no one outside the zoo staff had ever seen Flocke in person. This week, she made her first live public appearance.

Flocke is the second German polar bear cub in recent memory to draw “oohs” and “ahhs” from around the world. Her birth followed one year to the month after the birth of Knut, a burly little cub in the Berlin Zoo.

Like Knut, little Flocke is also an orphan. She was separated from her mother, Vera, when her zookeepers started fearing that her mother and another female bear, Vilma, might pose a threat to her. Unfortunately, in polar bears, this mother-cub bond cannot be reestablished once broken.

Therefore, to minimize attachment to humans, zookeepers are searching for another orphan cub to bring to the zoo as a playmate for Flocke.

When she’s not bouncing around the zoo or drinking a hearty blend of wolf milk and cod-liver oil (yum!), Flocke now spends her time charming the public.

Visit the website of the Nuremberg zoo to see videos and photos of Flocke or to learn about polar bear reasearch and conservation programs.

Sources: Yahoo! News, Nuremberg Zoo. Photo: Nuremberg Zoo.

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