Sunday, October 5, 2008

Maybe a Teensy Bit Less Than Expert

Has anyone else been watching the Grizzly Man Diaries? Animal Planet put together 8 hour-long episodes using Timothy Treadwell's video, diary entries and still photographs from his 13 seasons in Alaska.

For those of you who, like me, don't know Timothy Treadwell, he was a recovering drug addict that spent 13 years going up to Katmai National Park to "study" grizzly bears and foxes. In reality, he mostly hangs out, names all of the animals and gets in their faces to talk to them like they are people in a creepy high voice. Evidently, he and the US park rangers didn't see eye to eye on the whole "study" aspect because the rangers thought he was pestering the animals.

The sad part is that in 2003, his flight was delayed, so he and his girlfriend stay longer up in the park than ever before. That year had a particuarly bad salmon run so many of the bears were hungry. His last video recording shows a bear (that he doesn't know) behind him repeatly going after a dead fish--showing you hungry the bear is. That night one or possibly two grizzly bears attack and partially eat Treadwell and his girlfriend. There is a never-released audio recording...

During the series, Treadwell goes on and on about his expert knowledge about grizzly behavior. Since we all know that he is eventually attacked and partially eaten by a bear, it is fascinating to see him gloating about his advanced knowledge. It is strangely compelling to watch him get closer and closer to his own death. If you want to tune in, they show new episodes on Friday nights about 9ish. It's a bad decision kind of thing. Enjoy.

Update: His girlfriend and I are from the same hometown: Valparaiso, Indiana. retarculously weird.

2 comments:

Cladeedah said...

Oh yeah. Grizzly man was BSC (bat shit crazy). I kinda didn't really feel bad for him after he got eaten by the bear. The girlfriend I did feel bad for though. She didn't even want to be there.

Bethany said...

The director of the last movie they made about him (not this mini-series) said that he thought the Grizzly Man had a death wish. That kind of makes sense. I do feel bad for the girlfriend. They think that she watched him die first and then she was killed because she didn't get away. sad.