Polar bear Knut's half-sister makes public debut

Polar bear cub Anori explores the enclosure at the zoo in Wuppertal, Germany.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Anori was born in January and opened her eyes a month later


• She has ventured into an outdoor enclosure for the first time with her mother


• Anori shares a father with Knut, the polar bear cub who became an Internet sensation

(CNN) -- There's a new polar bear on the block -- meet Anori, half-sister to Knut, who made her public debut this week at Wuppertal Zoo in Germany.

Small, fluffy and cute, she wandered out into a small outdoor enclosure with her mother, Vilma, for the first time Thursday to meet her audience.

Anori, born on January 4, opened her eyes at a month old, the zoo says.

Since then, she has worked on mastering the tricky arts of walking and climbing, with her efforts captured by a surveillance camera placed within the bears' den.

Video footage from the outdoor enclosure shows the cub clambering tentatively along a log.

Anori shares a father with Knut, the cub who became an Internet star after he was abandoned by his mother and hand-raised by a zookeeper.

Knut died suddenly at age 4 in March 2010 at Zoo Berlin, to the sorrow of many worldwide who had followed the cub's progress.

A second cub was born with Anori in January but died a week later, the zoo said.

Wuppertal Zoo has a long history of raising polar bears, with the first cub born there in 1931, the zoo's website says.

Scientists believe there could be as few as 25,000 polar bears left in the world, according to Polar Bears International, a conservation group.

In 2008, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Source & Image : CNN World