GERMANY-ANIMAL-POLAR BEAR-KNUT-OFFBEAT-FILES

FILES - Knut, a three-month-old polar bear cub, appears to wave as he plays with his minder Thomas Doerflein during his first outing at Berlin's Zoologischer Garten zoo 23 March 2007. The bear was born in December 2006 and rejected by his mother so that Doerflein was bottle-feeding him. Knut, who has become a global sensation, will celebrate his first birthday on 05 December 2007. Half a million more visitors came to vivit the zoo in 2007, than in 2006, mostly due to Knut's popularity. PHOTO JOHN MACDOUGALL