Fundamental Errors
Far from bush Alaska, the story forged its own trail. Of course the AP picked it up, and because of Treadwell's Malibu connection, the Los Angeles Times provided extensive coverage. The editorial slant was generally less than positive. （“Brown bears were his life； he was their lunch,” a column in Field & Stream was titled.） Treadwell's friends and supporters, especially Grizzly People co-founder Jewel Palovak, provided staunch, if not always effective, counter-fire. At one point Palovak was quoted as saying that Treadwell's being killed and eaten was “the culmination of his life's work” —— a comment that was pounced upon by U.S. Geological Survey research ecologist Tom Smith, among others.
“Culmination？” Smith asked. “If you consider yourself a friend to bears, and want to project a positive image about them, how is getting two bears and yourself and your girlfriend killed a culmination of your life's work？”
Palovak later admitted that in her initial shock and loss she “probably said some stupid things.” She remains committed to preserving Treadwell's legacy. “I will do my best to portray what he thought, and to carry on the work of Grizzly People.” This means, she explains, continuing programs of bear education and finding ways to protect the animals. Treadwell left her countless feet of videotape to catalogue and organize, and what she calls “probably the biggest library of still images of brown/grizzlies in the world.”
Those searching for the meaning in what happened to Timothy Treadwell offer compelling theories, impossible to either prove or refute but containing flickers of insight. Bear-viewing guide Gary Porter says, “I think Timmy made a fundamental anthropomorphic error. Naming them and hanging around with them as long as he did, he probably forgot they were bears. And maybe they forgot, some of the time, he was human.” Porter points out that old, dominant males generally avoid people and are intolerant of other bears. A subordinate bear that refuses to move is attacked and, if it doesn't retreat, is often killed and eaten. Biologist Larry Van Daele calls such an event “apparently more of a disciplinary action than predatory.” And he, too, agrees there may be something to the theory, especially given “the strange, ambiguous signals Timothy sent to bears.”
“Maybe that big guy figured Timmy was just another bear,” Porter suggests. If so, it was a final, ironic compliment to a man who strove, among bears, to become as much like them as possible.
In the end, even the shadow cast by the killings doesn't negate the impact that Timothy Treadwell had on thousands of schoolchildren who shouted bear facts back to him in unison, wrote piles of letters and went home excited to learn more. His death was a shock, but maybe his life was a lesson to others about commitment to a cause. Conservation doesn't occur in a vacuum, and our collective and benign tolerance of bears is far more critical and real an issue than their tolerance of us. They need us to preserve their habitat and protect them from slaughter —— a threat especially in the Russian Far East. If bears are still walking the beaches of Alaska, the sedge fields of eastern Russia, and the pine forests of Montana a hundred years from now, it will be because people —— including the children Treadwell touched —— cared enough to make it happen.
Far from bush Alaska, the story forged its own trail. Of course the AP picked it up, and because of Treadwell's Malibu connection, the Los Angeles Times provided extensive coverage. The editorial slant was generally less than positive. （“Brown bears were his life； he was their lunch,” a column in Field & Stream was titled.） Treadwell's friends and supporters, especially Grizzly People co-founder Jewel Palovak, provided staunch, if not always effective, counter-fire. At one point Palovak was quoted as saying that Treadwell's being killed and eaten was “the culmination of his life's work” —— a comment that was pounced upon by U.S. Geological Survey research ecologist Tom Smith, among others.
“Culmination？” Smith asked. “If you consider yourself a friend to bears, and want to project a positive image about them, how is getting two bears and yourself and your girlfriend killed a culmination of your life's work？”
Palovak later admitted that in her initial shock and loss she “probably said some stupid things.” She remains committed to preserving Treadwell's legacy. “I will do my best to portray what he thought, and to carry on the work of Grizzly People.” This means, she explains, continuing programs of bear education and finding ways to protect the animals. Treadwell left her countless feet of videotape to catalogue and organize, and what she calls “probably the biggest library of still images of brown/grizzlies in the world.”
Those searching for the meaning in what happened to Timothy Treadwell offer compelling theories, impossible to either prove or refute but containing flickers of insight. Bear-viewing guide Gary Porter says, “I think Timmy made a fundamental anthropomorphic error. Naming them and hanging around with them as long as he did, he probably forgot they were bears. And maybe they forgot, some of the time, he was human.” Porter points out that old, dominant males generally avoid people and are intolerant of other bears. A subordinate bear that refuses to move is attacked and, if it doesn't retreat, is often killed and eaten. Biologist Larry Van Daele calls such an event “apparently more of a disciplinary action than predatory.” And he, too, agrees there may be something to the theory, especially given “the strange, ambiguous signals Timothy sent to bears.”
“Maybe that big guy figured Timmy was just another bear,” Porter suggests. If so, it was a final, ironic compliment to a man who strove, among bears, to become as much like them as possible.
In the end, even the shadow cast by the killings doesn't negate the impact that Timothy Treadwell had on thousands of schoolchildren who shouted bear facts back to him in unison, wrote piles of letters and went home excited to learn more. His death was a shock, but maybe his life was a lesson to others about commitment to a cause. Conservation doesn't occur in a vacuum, and our collective and benign tolerance of bears is far more critical and real an issue than their tolerance of us. They need us to preserve their habitat and protect them from slaughter —— a threat especially in the Russian Far East. If bears are still walking the beaches of Alaska, the sedge fields of eastern Russia, and the pine forests of Montana a hundred years from now, it will be because people —— including the children Treadwell touched —— cared enough to make it happen.