Siku (born 22 November 2011 in

Skandinavisk Dyrepark Skandinavisk Dyrepark (Scandinavian Wildlife Park) is a Danish zoo in Djursland, located in Syddjurs Municipality in Denmark. Opened for public in 1994, by the name ''Hjortenes verden'' (''World of deer''), later changed to Skandinavisk Dyrepar ...

) is a male polar bear. He was several siblings such as Sné. After his mother failed to produce enough milk to feed him, he was taken into care in the Scandinavian Wildlife Park in

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establishe ...

. In terms of popular appeal, he is by some considered to be a possible successor to the polar bear

Knut Knut (Norwegian and Swedish), Knud (Danish), or Knútur (Icelandic) is a Scandinavian, German, and Dutch first name, of which the anglicised form is Canute. In Germany both "Knut" and "Knud" are used. In Spanish and Portuguese Canuto is used whi ...

, who attracted worldwide attention at

Berlin Zoo The Berlin Zoological Garden (german: link=no, Zoologischer Garten Berlin) is the oldest surviving and best-known zoo in Germany. Opened in 1844, it covers and is located in Berlin's Tiergarten. With about 1,380 different species and over 20, ...

from 2006 until his death in 2011. A

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...

video showing Siku at the age of one month attracted hundreds of thousands of hits in just twenty-four hours and he was hailed internationally as an

online In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" o ...

sensation, especially after appearing on the official

BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

website.

Biography

Siku was born on 22 November 2011Skandinavisk Dyrepark website
. Accessed 24 December 2011. at

("Scandinavian Wildlife Park") in

Djursland Djursland () is a 44 km × 33 km hilly lowland peninsula in Denmark at the entrance to the Baltic Sea, between Denmark and Sweden in Northern Europe. Djursland protrudes into the Kattegat sea, as part of the larger peninsula of Jutland, ...

, Denmark. According to the Scandinavian Wildlife Park,

The name is symbolic because the polar bears are 100% dependent on sea ice for their survival. Polar bears catch all their prey from the sea ice, so no sea ice – no polar bears. Due to global warming, the sea ice in the Arctic Sea is rapidly diminishing, and the latest forecasts predict that the polar bear may be almost extinct in the wild 40 years from now.

Siku's mother, Ilka, had no milk in her breasts for the third year running, and so the park decided to "immobilize" her. According to park manager Frank Vigh-Larsen, Siku weighed three pounds (1.8 kg) at birth, but grew within his first month to seven pounds' (3.2 kg) weight."Abandoned polar bear cub Siku is set to be internet sensation"
(22 December 2011.) ''The Daily Mirror''. Accessed 24 December 2011. Receiving insufficient milk from Ilka, Siku was revealed on surveillance video inside the bear cave to be "moaning and being unruly all the time." At two days old, he was removed from his mother, as remaining with her could have endangered his life. His mother's defaulting on milk orphaned him, so that he required foster care, a type of

ex-situ conservation Svalbard GLOBAL SEED BANK, an ''ex situ'' conservation. ''Ex situ'' conservation literally means, "off-site conservation". It is the process of protecting an endangered species, variety or breed, of plant or animal outside its natural habita ...

. Still blind and deaf at the age of one month, Siku had to be bottle-fed. He was put into care at the Scandinavian Wildlife Park in Kolind, northwest of

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

, a privately owned zoo housing animals native to Scandinavia including

wolves The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly u ...

brown bear The brown bear (''Ursus arctos'') is a large bear species found across Eurasia and North America. In North America, the populations of brown bears are called grizzly bears, while the subspecies that inhabits the Kodiak Islands of Alaska is ...

s, and

reindeer Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 subsp ...

.De Giorgia, Lorianna. (22 December 2011.
"Cuter than Knut?"
Accessed 24 December 2011. Vigh-Larsen gave Siku 24-hour care in his own apartment at the zoo, with two more people expected to assist in New Year 2012. Vigh-Larsen was quoted as saying, "He likes to be very social between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. In the first week, he slept in his crate. . . but now he refuses to sleep in there and (instead) sleeps in bed with me." In spring 2012, Siku was re-introduced to the zoo's five adult polar bears, including his mother, Ilka.

Video, online stardom and Siku's potential role

A video posted on 22 December showed the tiny cub sleeping, stretching, sucking a keeper's finger, and enjoying a back

massage Massage is the manipulation of the body's soft tissues. Massage techniques are commonly applied with hands, fingers, elbows, knees, forearms, feet or a device. The purpose of massage is generally for the treatment of body stress or pain. In E ...

from a keeper. Siku's eyes were still closed. The video was viewed thousands of times after first being posted, and has been hailed as a YouTube sensation. Its popularity has invited comparisons with

(2006–2011), the polar bear cub raised at Berlin Zoo. However, Vigh-Larsen emphasizes that he does not want Siku to be too heavily compared to Knut, to deter extensive merchandise production and huge numbers of visitors: "What happened to Knut was a disaster. He was used in order to sell teddy-bears and tickets. Therefore we are doing everything we can in order to distance Siku from Knut as much as possible," he stresses. Instead, Vigh-Larsen hopes that Siku will serve as an "Ambassador and communicator for the

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada ( Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm ( Greenland), Finland, Iceland ...

area and the climate changes which occur up there.""Superstar Siku will not be the new Knut"
''

Århus Stiftstidende ''Århus Stiftstidende'' (colloquially ''Stiften'') is a Danish newspaper based in Aarhus, Denmark, focusing largely on local topics. History and profile First published by Niels Lund on 3 January 1794, ''Århus Stiftstidende'' is among the ol ...

'' Danish language newspaper. (23 December 2011.) Accessed 27 December 2011.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Scandinavian Wildlife park website
2011 animal births Individual polar bears Male mammals Individual animals in Denmark

Biography

Video, online stardom and Siku's potential role

See also

References

External links