We’ve followed the saga of Knut, the polar bear cub born in captivity in Berlin that Germany — a country prone to unhealthy mass hysteria — fell a little too in love with for years. And now, with his autopsy report, we can officially end this coverage with a final pronouncement. That Knut died the way he lived: by thinking that he was people. Or, at least through a condition that, until now, had only been associated with people.
Knut’s story ends with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, which caused his brain to swell, after which he fell into his pool and drowned. Assuming polar bears crap in ice flows, which are mostly water, we can say that he, therefore, died like another 300-pound white superstar on his toilet: Elvis.
Farewell, Knut. In the War on Animals, you were our favorite bear in a cage to rattle.