The Grizz

The film Grizzly Man is one of my all time favorite documentaries. The main focus of the documentary is on the grizzly man (a.k.a Timothy Treadwell). This is somewhat saddening to me due to the fact that, according to friends, family, and video footage, Timothy's one goal in life was to save the bears (or to illustrate, through film, what he saw in bears). Timothy truly believed that behind the ferocious exterior of the bear, was a kind, caring companion. He was willing to do anything and everything he could to protect and save the animals he cared so deeply for. But was it the right thing to do? One could easily argue both ways. One could argue along the lines of, "Timothy did a marvelous thing by living with, and protecting the bears." Another argument, however, could be that Treadwell was doing harm to the bears by habituating them to the presence of humans. In his footage he also spoke of attempting to help the salmon swim upstream. I do not think that Treadwell fully understood how his actions could have been affecting the environment. He also speaks of his view of the so-called circle of life. Treadwell showed his lack of understanding of how the ecosystem actually worked by cursing at predators for taking prey. Predation was, is, and will continue to be a natural cause of death and possibly natures way of population control. Furthermore, what Treadwell failed to realize was that the animals that he loved most were predatory species. Both bears and foxes are predatory species. I feel like this illustrates his failure to understand the real way of life in the wild. I am not saying that he was not a great survivor and an experienced outdoor enthusiast. I am simply saying that Timothy Treadwell had a bias towards the animals which were closest to him. I do believe that his footage, along with Herzog's work have provided viewers with a rare glimpse of the beauty and the danger of Alaska's pristine wilderness.