Knut the polar bear kicked up a fuss a while ago when it was claimed that animal liberationists were calling for its execution. When I first heard about it I could understand the point of view but I didn’t really think it had any weight because none of the animals in a zoo would have any chance of a normal (ie. able to live in the wild) life.

Except that isn’t really the story.

As Media Watch exposed last night Australian time, both people cited for making the claim were misquoted (or at the very least, quotes were taken out of context). From there, all the media reports quoted those misquotes and the snowball ensued (pun intended).

Compare the often published quote:

“They should have had the courage to kill him much earlier”.

with the full sentence

“They should have had the courage to kill him much earlier…but it’s much too late to put him to sleep and kill him now.”

So basically, nobody is calling for him to be put down. The guy who said that he should be killed was simply referring to an earlier German court decision that he didn’t actually support.

I could go on but you’re better off reading Media Watch’s transcript.

A Google-related funny.
The suggested search function can’t be correct 100% of the time I suppose.

(Pointed out on the Daily WTF)