Antje (walrus)
Antje (* May 25, 1976 ; † July 17, 2003 in Hamburg ) was a Pacific walrus ( Odobenus rosmarus divergens ) from the Hamburg zoo Hagenbeck , which was the mascot of the NDR for many years . There are rumors that Antje was a male, but this is not true, according to Klaus Zwonarz, the chief taxidermist at the University of Hamburg's Zoological Museum. The animal clearly has teats on its stomach.
The picture book “How Antje came to Hamburg” tells the (fictional) life story of the walrus Antje like this: The animal is picked up by a howler station, escapes to Hamburg, visits all kinds of Hamburg sights and finally ends up in Hagenbeck's zoo. The end of the story should be close to the truth: “She became famous and it happened like this: One day a man from television passed her pool of water. He had been looking for a heraldic animal for his transmitter for a long time. When he heard from Antje, he was enthusiastic about her story. Since then, Antje can even be seen on television. "
.svg){kind=logo}
In 1978 animal recordings were made in Hagenbeck's zoo as a pause filler during a break in broadcasting for the advertising-free NDR television , including a short film with Antje in which the walrus, leaning on the edge of the pool, lets water slosh onto land with its chin and belly while the NDR Logo "inflates". The film, and with it the animal, quickly became a crowd favorite, so that in 1984 the NDR included the walrus in its logo: the walrus's head appeared in profile in a circle, with the letters NDR underneath. Many spectators also visited the real Antje in the zoo, where the feedings, with Antje crawling out of the water and blowing the harmonica, were one of the attractions. Although she never got a real television role, apart from a guest appearance on Sesame Street , she became a real television star. With the walrus Antje, an undreamt-of source of income opened up for the NDR in the form of numerous Antje merchandising products.
The director of the zoo, Claus Hagenbeck, had the animal born in the Arctic Ocean brought from Moscow to Hamburg in 1976 . At only 62 kilograms, Antje was still quite petite at the time, but when she was fully grown she weighed 750 kg.
Until 2001, Antje was shown in the station's logo , partly animated (Blinzel-Antje) as a switching film. Then the logo was abolished as part of a renewal of the transmitter design. The NDR returned to a reinterpretation of its original transmitter mast logo. The broadcaster stated that the walrus had become unsuitable as a logo for information and cultural programs. Nevertheless, the animal was loved by the NDR employees. According to the weekly newspaper Die Zeit , however, NDR director Jobst Plog in particular was not a friend of Antje - he is said to have referred to her internally as a “smelly fish animal”. However, it was not completely abolished, but lives on in a children's cartoon series by Janosch , which has been broadcast since September 2003. Janosch is said to have visited Antje in the zoo before the first designs.
Antje died on the night of July 17th, 2003 after her imminent death had been announced a few days in advance. The animal hadn't eaten for a few days and could no longer leave the pool. However, Antje reached the age of 27 years (average life expectancy of a walrus: around 20 years) and was one of the three oldest known walruses in the world. The death of the animal was even reported in the national news broadcasts of the ARD ; however, these are produced by the NDR.
In the meantime Antje has been dermoplastically preserved and has been on view in the Hamburg Zoological Museum since the beginning of September 2004 . A bronze sculpture of the walrus stands as a water-spouting fountain figure at the Alster shopping center in Hamburg-Poppenbüttel , a larger-than-life statue in a playground behind the Bergedorf town hall.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Barbara Leisner, Kathrin Pitzl: How Antje came to Hamburg . Hamburg 1997, p. 22 (picture book).