Nature vs Nurture

[Cyndalie]

So a zoo in Germany had polar bears that had cubs. After one bear starved and ate her cubs the debated whether to let 'nature take it's course' or intervene and have a human-dependant cub to raise - such as Knut - and the media frenzy that surrounded the bear.

The cub was fished out of the Nuremberg bear-pit after a public and political outcry. Two polar bears, Vilma and Vera, gave birth before Christmas. Vilma let her two cubs starve and ate them, bones and all. Vera prowled the compound aimlessly, her cub in her mouth.

Mr Encke said that nature should be left to take its course. In the Arctic wilderness polar bear mothers frequently rejected their young, especially if they sensed that the cubs were too sickly to survive.

My question is.. You have polar bears in Captivity in a ZOO - what part of nature taking it's course does that involve??? Since they are endangered species, isn't the goal to have as many survive as possible - nature nas nothing to do with it - you've already bent that out of whack.