Knut is a superstar. Fifteen thousand visitors a day queue to see the baby polar bear tumbling about in Berlin Zoo with his bearded keeper-cum-surrogate-parent. Since Knut was born in December last year, these same visitors will - going by the European average - between them have eaten approximately 600,000 factory-farmed chickens. Knut enjoys a specially designed enclosure recreating his natural habitat. Each factory-farmed chicken enjoys a space the size of a sheet of A4 paper. Knut has his own blog and has appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair. A battery chicken is killed at the age of six weeks and appears as anonymous chunks of pre-packaged meat on your supermarket shelf.

There is no denying that Knut is cute. Though, ironically, whereas chickens are gregarious creatures that can make affectionate pets, polar bears are ruthless hunter-killers. But the sight of Knut tearing apart baby seals might cause a certain ambivalence among his fan base. So his dinner comes pre-slaughtered; all signs that it was once part of a living, sentient being have been removed - much like our supermarket chicken.