Passionate preservationist acts as a summer lifeguard
March 21, 1999
Elisabeth Sherwin -- gizmo@ dcn.davis.ca.us
Timothy Treadwell spends up to four months a year living unarmed among the wild bears of Alaska. To most people, this would seem like a foolish, foolhardy way to spend a summer. After all, it would only take one whack of grizzly’s paw and goodbye, Tim.
But he doesn’t quite see it that way.
"I’m much more likely to be killed by an angry sport hunter than a bear," he said decisively. "I’m in more danger here in San Francisco," he added.
Treadwell, 36, was speaking to me by phone from a cheap hotel in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, so I couldn’t argue the point. He was on the road promoting his 1997 book, "Among Grizzlies: Living With Wild Bears in Alaska," which has just been issued in paperback by Ballantine.
His book describes how he became a bear fanatic and what it’s like camping in the Alaskan wilds with only bears and a too-friendly fox for company.
Treadwell lets you know right away that he’s not a scientist and that his life with bears comes from his heart, not his head. Still, I asked him if his hours and hours of on-site observation had added anything to bear science.
"Well," he said, "I’ve observed the social culture of grizzly bears, their hierarchy and their recognition of that hierarchy. I’ve seen one bear, Taffy, use a stick in a crude tool-like fashion to scratch her back. And, hmmm. What are some bear myths? Well, it’s true that dominant males do sometimes kill cubs but it’s overstated and blown out of proportion. There’s no reason or advantage for it, the female will not then mate with the male. Oh, and bears do run downhill, very fast. Never run from a bear. They can be ferocious, dangerous animals but they are also shy, gentle giants."
I realized I was asking Treadwell the wrong question. He’s not the guy to ask about the science of grizzlies, although he has observed them for longer periods of time and more intimately than most experts. The question to ask Treadwell is: Why? Why does he camp by himself with only bears for company in an undisclosed location so remote that he sometimes doesn’t talk to another human being for more than a month?
"I’m their lifeguard," he says simply. "I’m there to keep the poachers and sport hunters away."
Since 1995 Treadwell has been a summer resident in the bear hierarchy and an expert bear observer. Patient, passive, he becomes part of the fabric of their lives.
(Oddly, he shaves and bathes every day while out in the field. It’s a personal quirk. He just doesn’t want to look like the stereotypical bear poacher or wild man of the mountains, even if there’s no one there to see him.)
"Bears have 21 basic body signals," he said. He knows them all and knows how to deal with a bear that’s upset, frightened, liable to do him injury. Frequently, he sings to them.
But he certainly doesn’t recommend others do what he does.
"They’ve taught me how to be confident and calm in their presence and give them their personal space," he said. "This may sound egocentric but (I live with bears) like Ted Williams hits a baseball. I can’t teach others how to do it."
Treadwell says he did bring a girlfriend out to the Alaska wilds and the bear habitat for about a two-month period in 1997.
"She started out in total fear and ended up loving the bears, too," he said.
He won’t say exactly where the bear encampment is.
"Ecotourism will kill the bears," he said. "They don’t have much of a future. They’ll either be loved to death or shot to death."
In Alaska, it’s legal to hunt grizzlies. About 1,200 a year are shot, about the same number are poached. Bear hunting is a multimillion dollar business. That’s why Treadwell is such a threat; he doesn’t want any bears killed and he has chased off hunters in the past. In fact, he takes a lot of heat from a variety of quarters – from scientists who scorn his methods, from hunters who mock his concern, from pilots and tradespeople in Alaska who object to his fervor.
Treadwell doesn’t care. He has committed his life to wildlife preservation.
"You know how people accuse animal rights activists of liking animals better than people?" he asks me. "Well, these bears are so much better than people. They are better than us. They make up a perfect ecological system. They do no damage, they are amazing and beautiful. They are basically peaceful and I would have no life without them. I’m living as long and hard as I can for the good of the bears and preservation of their habitat, which is good for the environment and the planet. If Taffy were in danger, I would shield her with my body."
Treadwell and his co-author, Jewel Palovak, run an organization called Grizzly People devoted to education and preservation of the dwindling bear population. Treadwell spends much of his time, when he’s not lifeguarding in Alaska, lecturing and educating kids about his passion. Grizzly People can be reached at P.O. Box 2872, Malibu CA 90265.
Katmai bear lover gets alarmingly close
Officials worry that man is promoting bruins as tame
By Elizabeth Manning / Anchorage Daily News
There was no mistaking Timothy Treadwell on the ''Late Show with David Letterman'' last Tuesday night (Feb. 20, 2001 and on re-runs).
He was the guy in the blue suit who looked like a shaggy-blond rock star and told viewers that the brown bears he lives with in Alaska are mainly harmless ''party animals'' out to have a good time.
When Letterman asked whether the bears might someday kill him, Treadwell said he feels safer living among Alaska's grizzlies than jogging through Central Park in New York City. Besides, he said, a fox yips a warning when bears come near his tent.
Treadwell, a self-taught bear expert from Malibu, Calif., has spent each of the past 12 summers living solo among Alaska's bears, mainly in Katmai National Park. He has given them names -- like Booble and Aunt Melissa -- and he's made it his mission, and living, to videotape bears close up and share his experiences. In the process, he has become one of Alaska's most controversial summer guests.
Despite misgivings, National Park Service officials have tolerated Treadwell, saying he has the potential to reach millions of people with his stunning footage of bears and his goofy though engaging television personality. But increasingly, park officials, bear biologists and other people have become concerned.
''At best he's misguided,'' said Deb Liggett, superintendent at Katmai and Lake Clark national parks. ''At worst he's dangerous. If Timothy models unsafe behavior, that ultimately puts bears and other visitors at risk.''
She worries that Treadwell might someday get mauled or killed by a bear. The park would have a tragedy on its hands and would probably have to destroy the bear.
Beyond that, Liggett and other officials worry that Treadwell is spreading the wrong message. During past television appearances, Treadwell has been shown so close to bears that he could touch them. He has been filmed crawling on his hands and knees singing as he approached a sow and two cubs. Another time, he chased a bear away from his camp with a stick.
''He tries to act like a bear,'' said Mark Wagner, chief of interpretation for Katmai and Lake Clark national parks. ''He thinks he's a bear. He lays down in their sleeping holes. I think that's a pretty scary message to give to the public. He's trying to make bears like a friend or pet instead of a wild animal.
''Is that how we want people looking at wildlife in a national park, like a dog or something?''
Treadwell did not return phone calls Friday and has refused many past interview requests. Likening himself to the late Southwestern writer Edward Abbey, Treadwell refuses to name the places where he works so they don't become overrun.
''I'm working for the bear,'' Treadwell said last summer in a brief phone interview. ''I just want to continue living with the animals. I'm documenting amazing things and looking out for a particular group of bears. If I screw up, the very bears I'm in love with will be killed.''
In his book ''Among Grizzlies,'' Treadwell says he was compelled to devote his life to saving grizzlies after nearly dying of a drug overdose and then experiencing several close scrapes with brown bears during his early trips to Alaska. Once, he said, he fell into a fetal position when a bear ran toward him. The bear just stepped over him, scraping its belly on his shoulder.
He says those experiences led him to quit drugs, study bears and start a nonprofit organization, called Grizzly People, that seeks to increase people's appreciation of bears.
Joel Bennett, Alaska director of Defenders of Wildlife, said Treadwell is effective at what he does. He described him as a ''bona fide naturalist'' and as someone who connects well with schoolchildren.
''He can take a segment of the classroom that couldn't care a whiff about bears, and he'll have them in the palm of his hand by the end of his talk,'' Bennett said.
Because of the educational work he does and his appearances on talk shows with Letterman and Rosie O'Donnell, Liggett said, the Park Service has chosen to work with Treadwell to tailor his messages rather than cite him or try to shut him out of the park.
Chuck Bartlebaugh, executive director of the Center for Wildlife Information in Montana, is also working with Treadwell so he'll give people sound advice for behavior around bears. He said this latest appearance with Letterman showed considerable improvement over past episodes because Treadwell didn't talk about getting close to bears and advised people not to feed them.
Tour guides who take visitors to the bays along the Alaska Peninsula where Treadwell lives each summer said their clients find him entertaining and well-informed.
''He gets to know the bears by name,'' said Dean Andrew of Andrew Airways in Kodiak. ''I've watched him talk to those bears. It's almost like they are big dogs. And I've seem them mind what he says, like a dog would mind you.''
Tom Smith, a bear biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, argues that Treadwell is contradicting the basic national park philosophy of leaving nature alone.
Smith said it appears Treadwell has habituated at least some bears to his presence. While that may be fairly easy to do among Katmai bears, accustomed to living in dense populations because of plentiful food, Smith worries that someone might try to duplicate Treadwell's behavior in places where grizzlies are more aggressive.
And as the bear-viewing industry grows in Alaska and as reality TV grows in popularity, some bear experts fear tourists might get the idea that bears aren't all that dangerous.
''I'm afraid it will be the next 'real TV' experience'' to try to get as close as possible to bears and put it on film, said Colleen Matt, regional refuge manager with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
''The worst part of it is that if somebody does get hurt, they will kill that bear,'' Smith said. ''What kind of tribute to the bear is that?''
(Reporter Elizabeth Manning can be reached at
emanning@adn.com and at 907-257-4323. This story appeared Feb. 25, 2001, in the Anchorage Daily News.)