Bear reasoning

"Well Mrs Smith, we killed your son because you were suffering from post-natal depression and rejected him straight after he was born. We know that you now say you've changed your mind and you want to love him and cherish him but at the time we thought you had disowned him. We thought that if his own mother didn't want him who were we to bring him up without the nurture and environs his mother could provide. So it became an absolute necessity to administer a lethal injection. It was for the best."
Knut is not a human baby. He is a baby polar bear born in the unnatural environment of Berlin Zoo. His mother gave birth to two male cubs and immediately showed no interest in looking after them. Perhaps because she could not do the naturally instinctive thing and dig a cave into the ice where she could suckle them and keep them warm and safe. One of the the cubs died but Knut survived and was bottle-fed and is now three months old. He is soon to be shown to the general public and the zoo's director hopes that - with dwindling numbers of wild polar bears - he could be able in future to father future generations of polar bears in captivity.
But animal activists are saying that Knut will be living in such an unnatural environment that it would be better to kill him rather than make him live a life of captivity.
I take no sides except to say that if this was a human baby no one would be even considering killing him. Do we really think we are that much superior to the animals that we have this power? If so we should go about mass euthanasia of every domesticated animal - be it a pet or a farm animal, a camel in the Sahara or a pony in an English paddock, because they are living in an unnatural environment.
I wonder if that activist enjoys his steak?