The cute bunny born with no ears seemed destined for stardom.
His owners, a small zoo in eastern Germany, summoned the media and a grand press launch was planned for today. But then tragedy struck.
A cameraman trying to film a close-up of the rare earless bunny frolicking with his siblings inadvertently stepped on the baby rabbit. The dream was over.
Instead of drawing adoring crowds, baby Til joined the growing list of short-lived animal sensations headed by Knut, the adorable polar bear that collapsed and died a year ago at Berlin Zoo at just four years old.
“We are all shocked,” Uwe Dempewolf, director of the Limbach-Oberfrohna Animal Park in Saxony, told Spiegel online.
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“During the filming, the cameraman took a step back and trod on the bunny. He was immediately dead, he did not suffer.
“It was a direct hit. No one could have foreseen this. Everyone here is upset. The cameraman was distraught.”
The rabbit’s body has been frozen while the zoo decides whether to have him stuffed.
“We had planned a news conference and we wanted to market it via the media because rabbits without ears are pretty rare,” Mr Dempewolf added.
“But now this unfortunate event has occurred. The other five bunnies are as right as rain. It is regrettable that he was the one who got stepped on.”
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Still, little Til did have his 15 minutes of fame in the mass circulation Bild newspaper, even if it could not resist the opening line: “Didn’t he hear him coming?”