Elephants Playing In Snow, Berlin ZOO, Germany

The polar bear Knut was born in captivity at the Zoo on 5 December 2006. Rejected by his mother at birth, he was subsequently raised by zookeepers and became the center of a mass media phenomenon that spanned the globe, quickly spawning numerous toys, media specials, DVDs, and books. Because of this, the cub was largely responsible for a significant increase in revenue, estimated at about five million euros, at the Berlin Zoo in 2007. Zoo attendance figures for the year increased by an estimated 30 percent making it the most profitable year in its 165-year history.
Bao Bao (born 1978) is the only Giant Panda in a German zoo and the eldest known Giant Panda in a zoo worldwide. Like many of his kind, he is on a permanent loan from China for breeding purposes. In spite of several artificial insemination experiments with a female named Yan Yan, there have been no offspring yet.