UK NEWS

ALL EYES ON THE NEW POLAR STARS

The twins cuddle up to their mother

Wednesday March 5,2008

By Jo Willey

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TWIN polar bear cubs made their first public appearance yesterday – and stole everybody’s hearts.

Blinking into the sunlight after months living in a cave with their mother, the cubs indulged in a little brotherly rough-and-tumble, to the delight of cooing crowds.

Even a top Hollywood director could not have won a more entrancing performance out of the first-timers.

Right on cue, they pawed at one another, wrestling and rolling around. It was, as they say, a wrap.

They then took a lunch break, tucking into apples and lettuce and enjoying their first taste of independence from their protective 15-year-old mother Olinka.

**********EXPRESS VIDEO: KNUT THE HAND-REARED POLAR BEAR***********

The cubs were born last November at Vienna’s Schoenbrunn zoo but have been protected until now – in contrast to the celebrity circus that surrounded Knut, the abandoned cub hand-reared by keepers at Berlin zoo in 2006.

In a second debut appearance yesterday, two more twin cubs, left, also enjoyed their first glimpse of the great outdoors and were photographed nursing with their mother at Moscow zoo.

Yet none of these cubs will stay cute for long. Knut already weighs 22 stone – but that hasn’t stopped him clinching a movie deal about his early life, called Knut and His Friends.