Grizzly Man

Watching Grizzly man, I found Timothy Treadwell’s personality very interesting. He was a man who lived in the Alaskan wilderness for 13 summers by himself alongside the Grizzly bears, the most dangerous animal in Alaska. You would think that somebody doing this would be the stereotypical burly, masculine man with weapons to protect himself. Timothy, though he described himself as a warrior, did not fit that persona. He was a somewhat scrawny man who carried no weapons with him and wanted to protect the bears from others because he viewed them as his friends. He treated the bears with love and kindness, and took a more eco-feminist approach to saving them. He did not want to use violence (though he sometimes exploded into violent rages), and tried to save the bears by showing everyone else the bears’ soft, loving, and peaceful personalities.

In doing so however, Timothy did not have a very realistic view of nature. He treated the bears like they were his friends and family, and ignored the fact that they are also wild animals who will kill if they feel threatened in any way. He also seemed to think he was invincible, and no harm would come to him even though he often said that if anyone else were doing this they would die. While he loved the bears, I feel he did not have a realistic grasp on how nature works. He talked about nature like everything was happy and perfect, and it was only humans who were doing harm. However, whenever anything bad happened that occurred completely naturally, and would have occurred whether humans had an influence or not, he broke down and could not understand why such a horrible thing would happen in his perfect, untouched, natural world. Grizzly bears are one of many predator species who will do whatever it takes to survive, which includes eating their own young.

While I think he was doing what he thought was right to protect the bears, it may have done more harm than good. He was always getting close to the bears, and after living with them for 13 summers, some of them seemed to be used to his presence, especially the foxes. Assimilating bears to humans is dangerous for both humans and bears, and being killed by a bear created an even greater negative stigma for bears, all of which might have done more harm in the end. Even though Timothy was trying to help the bears, I think he had a somewhat delusional view of the world, and went about trying to help the bears in the wrong way. He could have still educated others about bears without putting himself, Amy, and the bears in danger.