The Lost Bear Diaries on Animal Planet
Is freaking ridiculous. I don’t care what the “critics” say. Ten to one says that “critics” have, for the most part, never been camping, have never been around anything more wild than a squirrel their entire lives. To tout this show the way they are seems to me to say that they think you should go off in the woods and do exactly what the guy on the video is doing. It is irresponsible. If you don’t know what the “Lost Bear Diaries” are, let me explain.
There was this man named Timothy Treadwell who decided to leave California every year and go to Alaska and play with bears. He did a book, and, honestly, did a good job at raising peoples awareness of bears and to bear conservation. But, if you look at what the man ACTUALLY did while he was out there, you have to admit that the man was stupid. Bears are big. Bears are wild. Bears should not be approached, while you talk to them in a child like sing songy voice, and be petted. Are you kidding me? He would do this.
In fact, I watched some of this Lost Bear Diaries program and the hight of stupidity had me changing the channel. This man is supposedly an expert on bears. What makes an expert? Being able to pet a wild bear? Having families of foxes follow you around the park? See, here’s the thing. Treadwell wasn’t smart about how he went about documenting these bears. He treated them like children at best, pets at worst, (you can see it in the videos) and he, at every turn, tried to put one over on the park rangers who were there to help him. He refused to move his camp every five days, he had citations for not storing food properly, he would camp on bear trails, and he would hide his tent with brush so that park rangers couldn’t find him. All this stuff is documented. In fact, a really good report can be found here.
And what is worst is, he took his girlfriend out there, knowing that she was afraid of bears, and then did things that were out of the ordinary for him. He stayed a week longer than he usually did, so he was there when the bears had been used to him being gone. He camped on a trail used by bears, and he encouraged bears to come into his camp at night (again, that is documented). Bottom line, he wasn’t careful, he stopped seeing bears as beautiful, dangerous wild animals, and started acting like they were people and he got himself and his girlfriend killed and eaten. Yeah, Animal Planet doesn’t (or at least hasn’t) told the viewers that. So far, all they have said is that the bears “tragically took his life”. What happened to Treadwell was not tragic. Tragic, for me, means that it is unavoidable and unexpected. Now, for his girlfriend it was absolutely tragic. Hell, there is an audio out there and for six minutes, (according to reports because I didn’t want to listen to it, but you can google it) you can hear this woman, who fears bears, trying to fight a 1000 pound bear off with nothing but a frying pan (did I mention that Treadwell refused to carry bear spray?). She was very brave in that. Any death is horrible. Especially when you get eaten by a bear, but it is infuriating in that it could have very possibly been avoided.
Think about this. Until Treadwell and his girlfriend, there had not been a bear attack in that park for EIGHTY FIVE years. So what promted the attack? I think it is niave to think that you can mess with nature (and in his tapes he admits that he does) and to nt expect something negative to happen. Especially when you are messing with wild animals. In my mind his going out there and trying to pet the bears would be like someone walking up to a pride of lions and trying to scritch their tummies. People document wild animals all the time and don’t get eaten because they have a healthy respect for the fact that they ARE WILD ANIMALS. Animals, and especially wild animals, don’t react to things like people do, they don’t speak the same language as we do, they don’t have the same body language as we do. And unless you understand EVERY SINGLE nuance of the animal you are attempting to approach then perhaps you should stay in the car and take a picture. You definately shouldn’t be disregarding the safety rules of the State Park and hiding from the freaking park rangers.
Also, why is his getting eaten a tragedy when any other amature video of someone getting too close to a wild animal and getting mauled or hit is on a Funny Home Video show or on a Most Shocking Video show? Think about it. You are sitting at your house and you see or read or hear about some bozo at Yellowstone getting run over by a buffalo because they ignored the warning signs and tried to pet it. Do you think, “Oh, how tragic”, or do you think, “Dumb ass”? I tend to think the latter, but that’s just me. I grew up going out into the woods. I know that you make a lot of noise if you don’t want to startle the wild predators. I know that you sit real quiet to look at the deer or birds. I know to not mess with the snakes. And I know that I do NOT want to come face to face with a bear. I’ve seen bears from a car. I have some really great photos of black bears and black bears are no where near as big as a Grizzly or an Alaskan Brown bear. And never once did I think, “Wow, I wish I could get out of this car and pet him”. In fact, bears scare me because they are so BIG, and they can run fast and they can climb trees. So if you have a bear pissed at you and you can’t get in a car and speed away, the outcome for you is not going to be good.
I think he had the right idea with wanting to raise awareness and help bears. I just think he went about it in a manner that was dangerous, not well thought out, and, that eventually got him and a loved one killed. And there is a sadness in that because it could have been avoided.
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