Celebrity Bunny Meets Grisly End

Be wary, animal lovers. You will experience a bevy of emotions after reading this article. Handle with care.

A baby bunny who was born without ears (which looks way cuter than it sounds) has been making celebrity rounds in German media lately, only to have its 15 minutes cut tragically short when he was accidentally stepped on and killed by a television cameraman.

:O

17-day-old Til (yes, he had an adorable name, which humanizes him to Disney-esque, dewey-eyed proportions) was born with a unique genetic defect, and has been immortalized by the German media ever since. Today, the same day a small Saxony zoo was going to reveal him to the world at a press conference, he met his untimely end. Oh, sweet bitter irony.

The cameraman (murderer!) told Bild newspaper that he hadn’t seen Til, who had adorably buried himself in the hay, when he took a step backward, crushing the bunny. Zoo director Uwe Dempewolf tells Spiegel magazine that it was quick: Til didn’t suffer. “It was a direct hit,” he said.

But don’t fret. Germany has made a habit of collecting celebrity animals in recent years. They had the polar bear Knut, and I don’t think anyone has stepped on Paul the prognosticating octopus yet…