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A man without an identity
Posted by Bigmnt on Feb 05 2006
Let me start by saying that the conclusions to this story are tragic and that laws were broken and that the final penalty was death not just to Treadwell, but to a naive woman and two bears. Do I support the objectives of Timothy Treadwell? NO! Was Timothy Treadwell a normal logical thinking person? Well as Brian and others have pointed out, Treadwell had problems! In this day and age I still wonder what the definition of “Normal” is as it relates to our society, but that is beyond this topic.
Should we as sports-people all stand up and jump for joy thinking that this will all go away now because Timothy is dead? To do so would be head- in- the- sand logic! Is there nothing to be gained from the research of a man who spent ten years living with brown bears? Just because, we the minority, (hunters,) label him crazy, should that discredit his work? Is a man who drop out of his final year in college uneducated? Okay, this is where I think that we (hunters) are in trouble. In today’s world, it is not the “Normal” so called people who get the exposure, but the eccentric out of the usual types who make news and carry the message. For example: Ted Nugget, (God Love Him) would you consider him to be a “Normal” hunter and sportsman? Has anybody been watching TV lately? Who is the most recognizable hunter to the Now Generation? Do you think Ted carries the correct message? Please forgive me if I have insulted anyone... I do this only to make a point.
Tim Treadwell went out to prove a theory to the world that we could all live peaceably with grizzlies and that grizzlies if understood were not a threat. Now I am not referencing my comments on the Documentary “Grizzly Man”because I have not seen it, I am referencing Treadwells book and his Video’s. There is no doubt that Treadwell had personal problems and a skewed perspective. Did Treadwell prove this theory to be correct? This is the real question that we must examine.
To me the real value in Treadwells work is not the new earth shaking scientific discoveries that Tredwell makes, but that Treadwell substantiates a lot of what we all ready know or have concluded about brown bears. The fact that Treadwell tried to portray himself and act as if he was a brown bear to interact with the bears does not disturb me. It is just getting down to the brass tacs of the matter and is exactly what was done with studies of chimps and gorillas. Treadwell was successful at immersing himself, to some degree, in brown bear culture and not just one, but two cultures of bears. Tredwell took what he learned from one culture of bears and theorized that it would work in another culture of bears and for the most part he was correct. Sounds a little like science doesn’t it...
As Treadwell interacted with the bears he learned the social structure of the bear community. He recognized dominance in bear behavior, he learned to recognize bear physical posturing and the body gestures associated with each behavior. He knew if the bears posture indicated stress or aggression. Through his observation and interaction, you might say he could predict the actions of the bears that surrounded him and Treadwell knew when he was in a dangerous situation. Tredwell could recognize the signs given by the bears and his ten years of living among them would stand as some proof. When Tim first arrive on the peninsula, his biggest fear was the dominant adult male named Cezar, but with his interactions, Tim soon learned that the most dangerous bears to him were the sub adult male bears and especially the young males that would group together. In fact Treadwell predicated that it would be a sub adult male bear that would kill him if he was killed in the wild. Ironic, because of the two bears killed at the scene of Treadwells camp, one was a sub adult male. I believe that the sub adult killed Treadwell and the woman and then the dominate male came along and claimed the kill. There is much that I have learned about Timothy Treadwell’s interactions and observations of brown bear behavior. It is a little strange that bear, elephant and human sub adult males all have some similar tendencies. Treadwells observations of brown bears taught me that bears are much like humans in there moods and that on some days they may tolerate you and with another set of circumstances you may get run out of dodge, so to speak.
Should we totally shun the work of a man from the Midwest who changed his name and moved to Southern California and got caught up in drugs and decided to study and protect bears, just because we do not agree with his philosophies? Is Bigmnt such a threat because he can learn from the observation of the, so called enemy? Did Treadwell prove his theory to the world that we can all live peaceably with grizzlies? If you believe a story published by the Anchorage daily news late last year, that referenced a study of the movements of several radio collared brown bears living in and around Anchorage, then you would be led to the believe that some 28 brown bears are already among us and interacting with us without our knowledge on our own back porches. Maybe we can and do live peaceably with brown bears, we are just to ignorant to know it!
Bigmnt
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