Hoss 350
My GSP, Dutch
Okay, guys, I am currently trying to work my way through watching “The Grizzly Man”, which is that “documentary” about Tim Treadwell, who spent 13 summers on the Katmai Pennisula in Alaska, attempting to “study” the bears there, and to “protect” them. I have a few observations about this guy that I’d like to comment on, and see if any of you have seen it, and could add your opinions.
1. While billing himself as some sort of “bear expert”, I have so far never seen a man more ignorant of the true nature of bears than him. He tends to “project” human emotions and feelings onto the bears, and feels like they had “accepted” him into their community, when in reality, they most likely had learned, over 13 summers, that he was harmless and nothing much more than an annoyance, and so they ignored him (until thy got hungry). Animals do not have “human” emotions. They do not have pity or remorse, and to them, he was just an annoyance, and obviously, at the end, easy to acquire calories.
2. While billing himself as a naturalist and a person there to “protect” the bears, he did more to harass them than anybody could possibly have done and still hope to remain alive. This most certainly did not help them, at all.
3. While billing himself as a person there to “protect” the bears, he managed to lodge himself in the middle of the worlds largest bear preserve, the middle of a National Park, where hunting or otherwise harassing the bears is illegal, and (this one is important, so I am going to put it in bold) POACHING IS NON-EXISTENT!!! . So in the end, he was there to “protect” bears that were already protected in any way the word could possibly be defined.
4. While he spent 13 summers in the wilderness, he was totally insulated from the “real world” of the Katmai, and he managed to manufacture stories about poaching, etc, that did not exist. CASE IN POINT!!!! The “poaching” camp he found, complete with the lodge pole to “hang moose off of” strung across two trees was NOT a moose poaching camp. To those that do not know, to hang a moose, the pole must be at least 12 feet off the ground. Tim managed to reach up and grab it standing flat-footed with his elbows bent. Also, a moose weighs over a thousand pounds, and the dinky little lodge pole that was strung out there was not NEARLY big enough to hold a moose. Having spent a couple months myself up in the Pasayten Wilderness, I knew instantly what it was Tim was looking at. It was not a pole to hang game from. It was a hitching rail for tying up horses. When out and about, you should always either hobble your mounts, or tie them to a tie point above their heads (or thereabouts) so they do not accidentally “step through” the loop of their tie line, subsequently panicking themselves and tearing the camp to holy hell.
The guy was totally out of touch with everything around him. He lived in his own little fairy world full of harmless teddy bears and evil poachers. Sounds like a Disney movie, doesn’t it?
What this all comes back to in my rambling thought is the liberal interpretation of the way things should be. Not to get political, but Tim Treadwell had totally bought into the liberal propaganda of “man bad, nature good”. He bought into it so fully that his own life became unimportant to him. People say he died for a cause, and is a martyr. I still do not understand his cause. A soldier dies with honor and pride for a cause. A man playing Russian Roulette just simply dies. Tim was the latter.
Back to “man bad, nature good”. I have seen this general perception from people that have never been in the wilderness (and by wilderness, I don’t mean Yellowstone National Park, or your local National Forest. I mean, WILDERNESS) that it is peaceful, serene, beautiful, and to the point of being holy. It is true that nature can be all of those things, and more. I have personally felt the presence of God when I am standing on top of a mountain looking out at hundreds of miles of untouched nothingness. But I believe it was Hemmingway that put it so nicely, and summed up the basis of true wilderness, in that it (nature) was “red, in both tooth and claw.”
Again, to try to stay a-political, but still get my point across, it seems that liberals the world over are always searching for their own personal utopia. Whether it is universal healthcare, “to each according to his needs, from each according to his ability” socialism, political correctness (ie, everybody “getting along”) etc. Tim Treadwell’s little utopia was his idealized perception of living with the bears. He failed (or refused) to see beyond what he wanted to see, in order to reinforce his version of that utopia, and that is what ultimately killed him. He saw 1,000 pound carnivores as big, cuddly teddy bears, because his version of his own personal utopia required them to be so, and as a result, he is now a big, steaming pile of bear crap.
The lesson to be learned from all of this? Well, there are several…
1.) You are not an expert in bears simply because you’ve been around them and they haven’t killed you yet. This lesson applies to pretty much everything. WANTING to be an expert and actually BEING an expert are two different things. Tim was woefully ignorant of the true nature of bears, and it killed him as a result.
2.) The struggle to make things better is a noble one. Just make sure that in your struggle, you are fighting for a cause that needs to be fought, you are informed on the truth of your cause, that in your struggle you do not make things worse, and that you ALWAYS see things for how they are and work to make them the way you’d like them to be, not see things for how you would like them to be and live in blissful ignorance of how they ARE until that ignorance consumes you. Tim’s cause (protecting the bears) was meaningless in the expanses of the worlds largest bear sanctuary. Tim was not informed of the truth, as he attempted to “save” bears from poachers that do not exist, and saw bears as his friends (all the while, they saw him as a source of high-fat calories, and an annoyance, and nothing more). Tim made things worse in his struggle, because he succeeded in only annoying and interfering with the bears, not helping or studying them in any meaningful way, He also helped to accustom and desensitize the bears to human presence which is the most dangerous thing anybody can do with a bear, both for the bear, and for the people. And finally, because his death resulted in the deaths of two bears that were blamed for his killing. So in 13 years, all he accomplished was to get himself, his girlfriend, and two bears killed.
3.) Don’t listen to the liberal media about anything, because they will tell you that Tim was a beautiful man who lived his life in a beautiful way and died living his dream. They are wrong. He was an ignoramus, too blinded by his Disney-like utopia to see that the bears that were all ignoring him during the summer when food was plentiful, would see him as food once the pickings got lean in the fall.
And as a result, he got himself, his girlfriend, and two bears killed. The bears deserved better, for sure. I just feel sorry that they had to die with the taste of hippy in their mouths…
1. While billing himself as some sort of “bear expert”, I have so far never seen a man more ignorant of the true nature of bears than him. He tends to “project” human emotions and feelings onto the bears, and feels like they had “accepted” him into their community, when in reality, they most likely had learned, over 13 summers, that he was harmless and nothing much more than an annoyance, and so they ignored him (until thy got hungry). Animals do not have “human” emotions. They do not have pity or remorse, and to them, he was just an annoyance, and obviously, at the end, easy to acquire calories.
2. While billing himself as a naturalist and a person there to “protect” the bears, he did more to harass them than anybody could possibly have done and still hope to remain alive. This most certainly did not help them, at all.
3. While billing himself as a person there to “protect” the bears, he managed to lodge himself in the middle of the worlds largest bear preserve, the middle of a National Park, where hunting or otherwise harassing the bears is illegal, and (this one is important, so I am going to put it in bold) POACHING IS NON-EXISTENT!!! . So in the end, he was there to “protect” bears that were already protected in any way the word could possibly be defined.
4. While he spent 13 summers in the wilderness, he was totally insulated from the “real world” of the Katmai, and he managed to manufacture stories about poaching, etc, that did not exist. CASE IN POINT!!!! The “poaching” camp he found, complete with the lodge pole to “hang moose off of” strung across two trees was NOT a moose poaching camp. To those that do not know, to hang a moose, the pole must be at least 12 feet off the ground. Tim managed to reach up and grab it standing flat-footed with his elbows bent. Also, a moose weighs over a thousand pounds, and the dinky little lodge pole that was strung out there was not NEARLY big enough to hold a moose. Having spent a couple months myself up in the Pasayten Wilderness, I knew instantly what it was Tim was looking at. It was not a pole to hang game from. It was a hitching rail for tying up horses. When out and about, you should always either hobble your mounts, or tie them to a tie point above their heads (or thereabouts) so they do not accidentally “step through” the loop of their tie line, subsequently panicking themselves and tearing the camp to holy hell.
The guy was totally out of touch with everything around him. He lived in his own little fairy world full of harmless teddy bears and evil poachers. Sounds like a Disney movie, doesn’t it?
What this all comes back to in my rambling thought is the liberal interpretation of the way things should be. Not to get political, but Tim Treadwell had totally bought into the liberal propaganda of “man bad, nature good”. He bought into it so fully that his own life became unimportant to him. People say he died for a cause, and is a martyr. I still do not understand his cause. A soldier dies with honor and pride for a cause. A man playing Russian Roulette just simply dies. Tim was the latter.
Back to “man bad, nature good”. I have seen this general perception from people that have never been in the wilderness (and by wilderness, I don’t mean Yellowstone National Park, or your local National Forest. I mean, WILDERNESS) that it is peaceful, serene, beautiful, and to the point of being holy. It is true that nature can be all of those things, and more. I have personally felt the presence of God when I am standing on top of a mountain looking out at hundreds of miles of untouched nothingness. But I believe it was Hemmingway that put it so nicely, and summed up the basis of true wilderness, in that it (nature) was “red, in both tooth and claw.”
Again, to try to stay a-political, but still get my point across, it seems that liberals the world over are always searching for their own personal utopia. Whether it is universal healthcare, “to each according to his needs, from each according to his ability” socialism, political correctness (ie, everybody “getting along”) etc. Tim Treadwell’s little utopia was his idealized perception of living with the bears. He failed (or refused) to see beyond what he wanted to see, in order to reinforce his version of that utopia, and that is what ultimately killed him. He saw 1,000 pound carnivores as big, cuddly teddy bears, because his version of his own personal utopia required them to be so, and as a result, he is now a big, steaming pile of bear crap.
The lesson to be learned from all of this? Well, there are several…
1.) You are not an expert in bears simply because you’ve been around them and they haven’t killed you yet. This lesson applies to pretty much everything. WANTING to be an expert and actually BEING an expert are two different things. Tim was woefully ignorant of the true nature of bears, and it killed him as a result.
2.) The struggle to make things better is a noble one. Just make sure that in your struggle, you are fighting for a cause that needs to be fought, you are informed on the truth of your cause, that in your struggle you do not make things worse, and that you ALWAYS see things for how they are and work to make them the way you’d like them to be, not see things for how you would like them to be and live in blissful ignorance of how they ARE until that ignorance consumes you. Tim’s cause (protecting the bears) was meaningless in the expanses of the worlds largest bear sanctuary. Tim was not informed of the truth, as he attempted to “save” bears from poachers that do not exist, and saw bears as his friends (all the while, they saw him as a source of high-fat calories, and an annoyance, and nothing more). Tim made things worse in his struggle, because he succeeded in only annoying and interfering with the bears, not helping or studying them in any meaningful way, He also helped to accustom and desensitize the bears to human presence which is the most dangerous thing anybody can do with a bear, both for the bear, and for the people. And finally, because his death resulted in the deaths of two bears that were blamed for his killing. So in 13 years, all he accomplished was to get himself, his girlfriend, and two bears killed.
3.) Don’t listen to the liberal media about anything, because they will tell you that Tim was a beautiful man who lived his life in a beautiful way and died living his dream. They are wrong. He was an ignoramus, too blinded by his Disney-like utopia to see that the bears that were all ignoring him during the summer when food was plentiful, would see him as food once the pickings got lean in the fall.
And as a result, he got himself, his girlfriend, and two bears killed. The bears deserved better, for sure. I just feel sorry that they had to die with the taste of hippy in their mouths…
