Failure™ Magazine

Bear With Me

The author of “The Grizzly Maze” on Timothy Treadwell.

Written by Jason Zasky   Filed under Arts & Entertainment, Life

Speaking of misconceptions, can you talk about the last chapter of your book?
I wanted to fit in as much accurate, up-to-date bear information as possible—not in a dry scientific way and not in a lurid bear-chew way, which would give people the wrong impression. I did it with the idea of getting out information to the public, not with the idea of how dangerous bears are, but how dangerous they aren’t if you do the right things.

What kind of impact do you see Grizzly Man having on bear viewing and the Katmai coast?
The film is going to boost bear viewing. And it’s already quite the industry. There are 70 licensed bear viewing operations on the Katmai coast. In 2000 there were none. It wasn’t even recognized as a thing to do. It is probably going to force more people into the space that the bears occupy.

But while the good of a few bears may get sacrificed the protection is getting better and better all the time because the protection comes from all the bear viewers. No one can poach with all those eyes and with all those guides who see every bear as a valuable commodity.

After writing “The Grizzly Maze” do you feel like you’ve come as close to explaining what happened to Treadwell as anyone is going to get?
Yeah, I do. There might be a few more acorns to turn over, but unless a shooter on the knoll suddenly emerges the answer is no. I don’t think anyone coming in from the outside could do more.

What kind of feedback have you received from Treadwell advocates and Treadwell critics?
People who are vehemently opposed to Treadwell are disappointed in what I wrote. People who are his deepest and most staunch supporters are also disappointed in what I wrote. What I did, as much as I could, was to get as much information together as possible and tried to be a guide through it. But I wanted each individual to make up his or her own mind. By and large, my opinion stays out of it.

I personally think what he was doing was incredibly wrong-headed but very right-hearted. He had his heart in the right place. He wasn’t just a con. He believed in his cause but he conned people into supporting it.

How do you feel about Grizzly Man?
The Herzog film is very accurate in a number of respects, but I do question its basic premise that Treadwell was sliding into madness. Don’t get me wrong; he was a different kind of cat. And he definitely had a high level of sympathy with animals. He believed he could make personal connections [with his bears].

But I think people—both during Timothy’s lifetime and after his death—are attaching artistic spin to him or have a personal agenda. I do believe that most of the footage is taken out of context. It certainly appears that Timothy is mad. But another way of looking at it is that he is an actor playing with a video camera and he is going through these histrionics. He saw himself as an actor and he was a chameleon his whole life.

Official Web site of Grizzly People

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