[pct-l] Grizzly Tim Treadwell

[RoksnRoots at aol.com (RoksnRoots@aol.com)]

       Pretty good production asking a lot of hard questions about what 
Treadwell did and what it meant.

       The documentary pieces together Treadwell's videos of his Alaskan bear 
mingling and protection allowing Treadwell's own words to narrate. 

       I think it's interesting that Treadwell tried to live amongst wild 
Grizzlies in order to show the value of totally wild life being looked after by 
man. The film manages to capture the untested edge of risking it all to make an 
environmental/existential statement. What is sort of spooky about the piece 
is how Treadwell himself speaks of and rationalizes the very thing that ended 
up happening to him several different times. 

        It was sort of clear he had decided to take the risk and live with 
the consequences. Whether that was suicidal or not is for others to decide. 
Whenever he faced this unavoidable possibility on camera he resorted to a sort of 
magical confidence that he was in possession of the right mind and intention 
to pull off this unprecedented life amongst bears. 

        From what I saw he had managed to "horse whisper" the grizzlies at 
the "maze" into accepting his presence. One of the locals said he probably 
lasted as long as he did because the bears thought he was abnormal or mentally 
retarded. But the real reason is probably because he went there when the salmon 
were running and co-habitated with them in a place where they were less 
aggressive from having a regular food source in a bear communal spot. To the bears he 
wasn't prey or threat, so they ignored him. Humans are alien to wild 
grizzlies. The reason he wasn't attacked was because he managed to horse whisper 
territorial confidence in the bear's language. 

        Towards the end Treadwell speaks of being killed and eaten only hours 
before he was. They think the bear in the background is the one that did it. 
He justifies it by saying he has already beaten those who doubted his work. 
The second factor that gave him the courage to take the risk was his contempt 
for the National Park Service and those who would harm the bears or their 
territory in general. He offers some profanity-laced rants towards the park service 
in the video. He makes it clear that the park service was more interested in 
bothering him than dealing with the real threats to the bears. After Treadwell 
was killed several of the bears he was protecting were poached. Those who say 
there's no evidence of this are just ignoring that Treadwell showed no poached 
or dead bears up to that point in his videos. Word was probably out that he 
was protecting them. If you ask me, it was probably people who said "glad to 
hear he was eaten" who shot those bears.


        Treadwell's mistake was not realizing the total equation grizzlies 
present vs humans. As Treadwell showed, humans can live amongst bears and use 
body language and bear habits to live amongst them, but the way the chart works 
is grizzlies will attack to kill every X amount of time. While Tim was living 
within the safe range of the equation it was just a matter of time before he 
reached that point on the chart where an attacking bear can't be dealt with in 
any way by an unarmed human. That corner of the chart categorically results in 
a dead human. If you want to live amongst 1000 pound animals with 4 inch 
claws and powerful jaws of canine teeth you have to have all those yourself. So 
trying to not harm the bears was unwise considering the harm a rogue could do to 
him and did. If he didn't want to harm them he should have had a dart gun or 
bear taser (or electric fence). 

      Of the two, I think those Alaskan politicians who are saying Alaska is 
underdeveloped represent a much worse threat than the bear that ate Treadwell.