Knut, the polar bear that drove people nuts a year ago when he was a cub, has become  a “publicity-addled pyscho”:

Markus Roebke said Berlin Zoo’s celebrity animal was obsessed with the limelight and howled with rage when denied an audience.

“Knut must go and the sooner the better,” he said, insisting that the bear should be sent to an animal park where he received less attention.

“He is addicted to the whole show, the human adulation. It is not healthy.

“He actually cries out or whimpers if he sees that there is not a spectator outside his enclosure ready to ooh and aah at him.

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“….Knut needs publicity and that must change. We are not allowed to have contact with him and have received letters that if we breach this order our jobs are on the line. He is too unpredictable to play with now.”

Mr Roebke is not the only observer to question Knut’s sanity. In January, a prominent animal conservationist branded him “an animal psychopath”.