[at-l] Grizzly Tim Treadwell - Discovery

[camojack at comcast.net (camojack@comcast.net)]

"...the locals said he probably lasted as long as he did because the bears thought he was abnormal or mentally retarded."

Hmmm. Maybe they were onto something there, y'know?

"Dying ain't much of a living, boy." -Clint Eastwood
(As the title character in "The Outlaw Josie Wales")

Neither is becoming bear s...scat. YMMV...

-"Camo" 

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: RoksnRoots@aol.com 
 
 Tomorrow at 8 they are repeating the documentary about the man who lived amongst the wild Alaskan Grizzlies and was eventually killed by one in October 2003. 
 
 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" he lived in 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. 
 
 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 of those yourself. So trying to not harm the bears was unwise considering the harm a rogue could do to him and did. If he wanted to do that he should have had a dart gun or bear taser. 
 
 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. From s.landis at comcast.net  Sat Feb  4 07:28:51 2006
From: s.landis at comcast.net (Steve Landis)
Date: Sat Feb  4 07:41:41 2006
Subject: [at-l] "Who cares about the A.T. anyway?"
In-Reply-To: <mailman.8103.1139036307.581.at-l@backcountry.net>
References: <mailman.8103.1139036307.581.at-l@backcountry.net>
Message-ID: <43E4AC13.6060006@comcast.net>

RoksnRoots@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 2/3/06 3:51:00 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
> s.landis@comcast.net writes:
> *

> << Not if you're using Mozilla Firefox with popup blocking 
>  http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/ >>
> *
> *
> *
> 
>                I prefer the man's version of AT condo blocker.
> 

Not that there's anything wrong with that.  The point is that not 
everyone is seeing what you are seeing - there's a newsflash.


Steve