In Defense of Timothy Treadwell (Grizzly Man) By Capt Paul Watson.

[Guest guest]

In Defense of Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard

 

 

By Captain Paul Watson

 

On October 12th, the Anchorage Daily News published a

column by Mike Doogan,

self-

described " True Alaskan " .

 

My initial response to Doogan's column is directly

below. Following my response

is a copy

of his original column. Below the column is an

exchange of words with Mr. Doogan

via

email. This should help to understand the warped

perspective that a few Alaskans

have of

their State and the wildlife that inhabits it.

 

At the bottom of Doogan's column is his telephone and

e-mail address - feel free

to drop

him a comment or two.

 

 

Mr. Doogan,

 

Obviously you never met Timothy Treadwell or attended

one of his presentations.

Tim had

no illusions about how dangerous bears are. He knew

they were dangerous. But he

also

knew that they were not as dangerous or as shallow as

some of his fellow human

beings.

 

For thirteen years, Tim lived his summers in Alaska

bear country without

carrying a gun.

Try to walk though some of our nation's cities unarmed

and see how far you get.

 

I was with Tim on the ice floes of Eastern Canada when

he was filming seals and

my

impression of him was that he was a courageous man who

was very much aware of

the

risks that he took. He took these risks because he

believed they were worth

taking. He was

a volunteer in the conservation movement and he was

dedicated to the

conservation and

protection of bears.

 

Tim's work opened up a different perspective on bears

and his message to school

children

is that we have no right to exterminate or extirpate

the bear

 

I prefer Tim's approach to that of the sport hunter

who views the taking of a

life and the

destruction of such a magnificent animal as a

pleasurable perversion.

 

By the way Mike, a few hunters have been killed over

the years by bears. In your

opinion,

were they also foolish or is carrying a gun a

justification for their mistake in

bear country

because they were " prepared " ?

 

I have many bears in my area in Southeast Alaska, both

brown and black. They

sometimes

sit on my front porch. I walk for miles in the Tongass

without a gun and never

needed one.

I'm not a fool Mr. Doogan, I've made it to fifty-three

years of age swimming

with sharks

and tracking and hunting poachers. You may choose to

carry a firearm but don't

force your

cowardly views on everyone else.

 

Tim Treadwell rode the odds for almost a decade and a

half and he may have

possibly

made a mistake in judgment that led to his death. It

happens. That's life. Amie

Huguenard

was also very much aware of the danger of living

amongst grizzlies. This was her

third

year among the bears.

 

These two people had every right to take the risks

that they chose to take. It

was their

decision to experience nature the way they chose to do

so.

 

There is by the way no documented evidence of anyone

dying in Glacier National

Park

because they read Tim's book and duplicated his

activities. Was this a

fabrication or just

your spin on another incident involving bears and

people?

 

You were also incorrect about Diane Fossey. She was

not a trained biologist. She

was an

occupational therapist when Louis Leakey recruited her

to work with the Mountain

Gorillas

and both Diane and Tim shared one very important thing

in common - they loved

their

subjects and worked tirelessly without pay in harsh

conditions to study their

respective

species. Diane was killed by a poacher, a type of

human being far more dangerous

than a

Grizzly bear. Perhaps you considered her foolish also.

 

Tim told me many times that he would most likely die

from a bear or poacher

attack. He

said it would be preferable to dying of old age, from

a car-jacking, or an

automobile

accident. He did not intend to die that way, he was

simply aware of the chances

that he

was taking. The fact that he was not suicidal is

evidenced by his attempts to

defend

himself from the bear. Amie Huguenard displayed great

courage in defending Tim

and you

reward her courage by labeling her and Tim as fools.

So easy to disrespect the

dead, so

easy to muckrake people no longer able to defend

themselves.

 

Were you aware, Mr. Doogan, that Tim and Amie were

scheduled to have left Katmai

but

had to stay to keep an eye on a poacher in the area?

 

Are you aware, Mr. Doogan, that this case is still

under investigation and all

the facts are

not yet in? There is a possibility that the offending

bear may have been

wounded. And if

so, by who or what? Like Diane Fossey, it may turn out

that it was a poacher

that brought

down Tim and Amie by wounding a bear.

 

We don't yet know all the facts. What we do know is

that this bear acted

contrary to any

bear in Timothy's thirteen years of experience and

this suggests that there is

more here

than meets the eye.

 

And you slander them further by jumping from their

deaths to a link with attacks

on goose

and duck breeders. What the hell does that have to do

with anything that Tim and

Amie

were doing? Absolutely nothing - but it is your

intention to place an

association of

criminality in the mind of your readers and it is a

very cowardly device, Mr.

Doogan.

 

As for your conclusion that ducks and geese exist to

be eaten. It can be said

just as easily

that humans exist to be eaten by bears. In Neolithic

times, a great many humans

provided

meals for cave bears and other predators. If it is

your rationale that ducks and

 

geese are

meant to be eaten (as instructed by God who relayed

this fact to you, I suppose)

then the

same logic implies that humans are meant to be eaten

by bears.

 

If this is so, the death of Timothy and Amie is more

natural than the unnatural

deaths they

may have suffered in an auto accident or a shooting.

Unless of course, you think

that

humans are meant to be killed in auto accidents or

from gunshot wounds.

 

Animals, as you say, do not have human thoughts or

feelings, Mr.Doogan, but they

do

have thoughts and feelings. If bears thought and felt

like humans they would be

a truly

vicious, unpredictable and extremely dangerous species

- as we indeed are.

Animals are

not vegetables. Your knowledge of biology is very

limited. Please don't confuse

zoology

with botany.

 

But what I don't understand is how you imply

indirectly at the end of your

column that Tim

and Amie were acting criminally, and that they had

nothing to offer but mushy

thinking

and vegetables.

 

You call yourself an Alaskan. I'm an Alaskan also and

when I remember Timothy

Treadwell,

I remember a man who has spent thirteen summers in the

wilderness living unarmed

amongst grizzly bears. This was an Alaskan if I ever

saw one despite spending

his winters

touring the lower forty eight with his message of bear

conservation.

 

Tim would not have had to come to Alaska if our

short-sighted fore-bearers had

not

exterminated the brown bear from California, leaving

it to mock our ecological

stupidly by

remaining on the state flag.

 

Timothy Treadwell was no granola eating chardonnay

sipping yuppie tree hugger.

He was

a man of unique courage and vision who entered the

world of the bears armed only

with a

camera. He died in the wilderness, doing what he loved

to do, enjoying life to

the fullest.

 

He was my friend and he was a friend of the bears and

of nature. Have some

respect man

before you flap your ignorant anthropocentric jaws

about someone you did not

know and

knew little about.

 

Here's a little quote from Teddy Roosevelt that places

your comments in the

proper

perspective: " It is not the critic who counts, not the

one who points out how

the strong

man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done

better. The credit belongs

to the

man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred

with sweat and dust and

blood;

who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again

and again; who knows the

great

enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself

in a worthy cause; who, if

he wins,

knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, if he

fails, at least fails

while daring

greatly, so that his place shall never be with those

cold and timid souls who

know neither

victory or defeat. "

 

You, Mr. Doogan, appear to me to be one of those cold

and timid souls.

 

-Capt Paul Watson

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mike Doogan column originally published by Anchorage

Daily News, Oct 12, 2003:

 

Forgetting to treat animals like animals isn't safe --

or even sane By Mike

Doogan

 

A couple of recent stories highlight the continuing

inability of some people to

understand

animals, or the proper relationship between them and

humans.

 

One, of course, is the death of Timothy Treadwell, who

was killed and eaten by a

bear last

week in Katmai National Park and Preserve.

 

Treadwell had made a career of behaving dangerously

around brown bears: getting

too

close, touching them, naming them. He went into the

wild with no protection

against

bears, telling friends he thought he knew the bears so

well he didn't need it.

 

He also wrote and spoke a lot of nonsense about the

bears, on one memorable

occasion

calling them " party animals " on a television talk

show, as if they were frat

boys in fur

coats.

 

If this nonsense had only killed Treadwell, we could

simply write his behavior

off as suicide

by bear. But it didn't. It also killed his companion,

Amie Huguenard, and, so

far, two brown

bears. I'm sorry, but I don't know what names

Treadwell may have given the dead

bears.

 

The damage done by Treadwell's misguided beliefs is

apparently not limited to

this

incident. Treadwell had himself filmed behaving

foolishly and wrote a book about

his

exploits. According to one of his critics, this

impressed a couple in Glacier

National Park

so much that they imitated him by going off into the

brush and were killed by a

bear.

 

And, God help us, Treadwell apparently spent some of

his time " teaching "

schoolchildren

about bears. There's no telling how many others he had

encouraged to be stupid

about

brown bears.

 

If you listen carefully, you can hear the presses

gearing up to print the

inevitable book

lionizing Treadwell and his loony behavior. He's not

without defenders. Joel

Bennett, an

Alaska wildlife filmmaker who should know better,

compared him to Dian Fossey.

 

Let's see. Fossey was a trained naturalist. Treadwell

wasn't. She was studying

shy,

vegetarian mountain gorillas and trying to protect

them from poachers. He was

messing

around with some of the most aggressive meat eaters on

the planet. She was

murdered,

probably by poachers. He was killed and eaten by a

bear. So you can see how

Bennett

could think the two were alike.

 

Treadwell had been warned many times that his behavior

was dangerous. He replied

that

he preferred to die as part of a bear's meal. But a

tape recording of part of

the fatal bear

attack shows he changed his mind, calling on Huguenard

to come and help him.

According

to the evidence at the site, she did and was killed

herself.

 

If Treadwell went looking for death, and didn't like

what he found, in his

native state of

California there are others who don't like what they

find and threaten others.

 

Some of them plant bombs at companies they claim use

animals in scientific

tests. Others

set fires at meat-packing plants. And a group that

calls itself Gourmet Cruelty

is liberating

ducks to keep them from being force fed to produce

foie gras. Someone -- someone

too

cowardly to claim responsibility -- has also

vandalized a restaurant and

threatened a chef

over the use of foie gras.

 

Foie gras is French for fat liver. It is considered a

delicacy. Farmers produce

it by force-

feeding domestic fowl, male ducks and geese. The

practice has been going on

since the

ancient Egyptians. There is no evidence the practice

hurts the fowl, which are

going to be

killed anyway.

 

So what's the objection? Like Treadwell with the

bears, animal rights activists

anthropomorphize the practice, arguing that since

humans wouldn't like to be

force fed

through a tube, ducks and geese don't like it either.

That seems to be

debatable, duck and

goose physiology being quite different from human. But

even if it's not, so

what? Why do

you suppose ducks and geese exist? To write

philosophical treatises?

 

Nope, they exist to be eaten. If we don't eat them,

something else will, even if

it's only

worms. And they don't have human thoughts or feelings,

so trying to superimpose

our

experience and our values on them is as foolish as

thinking you can live safely

among the

bears.

 

The animal rights activists have nothing to offer but

vegetables and mushy

thinking.

They're welcome to both, until they act criminally.

That should get them jail

time. I'm sure

they won't be offended by any foie gras in the stony

lonesome.

 

Mike Doogan's opinion column appears each Tuesday,

Friday and Sunday. Reach him

at

907-257-4350 or mdoogan

 

E-mail Exchange with Mike Doogan

 

First response from Doogan:

 

Thanks for the message.

 

A couple of points.

 

First, I think that Diane Fossey, who trained under

one of the leading

naturalists of her

time and received a doctorate from Cambridge for her

gorilla research, would be

surprised

to learn that she was not a trained naturalist.

 

Second, there was no poacher in the area when

Treadwell was killed, nor has

poaching

been a problem in that area. Treadwell himself told

somebody that he'd stayed to

make

sure one of the bears he had named was okay. The bear

that killed him had not

been

wounded, at least not by a human. This has all been

reported. Reading only what

you want

to read?

 

Third, living in the wilderness among grizzly bears is

not what Alaskans do. Not

what real

Alaskans do, anyway. Real Alaskans live in towns and

hold jobs and try to

improve the

material conditions of life for themselves and their

children. It's only faux

Alaskans, like

Treadwell and, I guess, you who are so in love with

the idea of some near-Eden

existence

in nature that they spend their time in trivial

pursuits.

 

Finally, you write that Treadwell " was dedicated to

the conservation and

protection of

bears. " What does that mean? We have plenty of bears

in Alaska, and there is

nobody --

no person or organization – threatening them. So who

was he protecting bears

from?

 

Oh, by the way. What are you captain of?

 

-Mike Doogan

 

Paul Watson's 2nd Reply to Mike Doogan:

 

Mr. Doogan,

 

The International Chairman of my organization, the Sea

Shepherd Conservation

Society, is

Farley Mowat, He wrote a biography of Diane Fossey

called " Virunga. " I referred

to him and

he confirmed what I told you. Diane was an

occupational therapist who was

inspired by a

book written by George A. Schaller. She volunteered

for a position offered by

Louis Leakey

and she was field trained by Jane Goodall. She had no

academic credentials when

she

started her work. Diane completed her doctoral thesis

in 1980, thirteen years

after going

to Africa to live with the gorillas in 1967. In other

words, she had the same

credentials as

Timothy Treadwell for most of the period that she

worked with gorillas and for

the same

period of time.

 

Timothy's thirteen years left him with a in depth

knowledge of bears. He kept

journals and

made contributions to the literature on bears. He

certainly contributed to the

film and

photographic library on bears.

 

Also on my Advisory Board is Dr. Birute Galdikas who

was a friend of Diane's and

who has

dedicated her life to Orangutans. I called her to

verify the facts above and I

sent an E-mail

to Dr. Louise Leakey, another member of my advisory

board. Louise is the

grand-daughter

of Dr. Louis Leakey. The Leakey family was very

supportive of Timothy's work and

they

sent him a letter of support.

 

There were indeed poachers in the area. Timothy had

been threatened by them and

he had

photographs. I've seen them. Don't tell me there are

no poachers in Alaska. We

had a bear

cub orphaned near us only three months ago and a few

days later we saw the

skinned

body of it's mother floating in the sea.

 

Poaching is quite common in Alaska, Mr. Doogan. You

would know this if you got

out of

Anchorage more often. I'm assuming you don't based on

your comments about " faux

Alaskans " . You probably do get out to shoot things.

Timothy's work was really

not just

about protecting bears from poachers in Alaska it was

also about the possible

restoration

of the bear in the lower 48.

 

The bear's body has been taken for forensic

investigation. This case has not yet

been

closed. I understand that there was a damaged canine

tooth. You do not have the

facts to

state that the bear was not wounded. The investigation

has not officially

established the

facts in this case. It may have been reported but it

has not been established.

Big

difference.

 

Now let me get this straight. You're saying that only

" faux Alaskans " live in

the wilderness

and real Alaskans live in Anchorage. I had to sit down

for that one. You have

got to be

kidding. I did not disparage urban dwelling Alaskans

but you retaliated by

disparaging

wilderness dwelling Alaskans. Are you saying Mr.

Doogan that because our Lodge

is 50

miles from the nearest road in Alaska that I am a

" faux Alaskan " . You're joking

of course.

But if you're not, this certainly clears up where you

are coming from i.e. you

haven't gotten

the faintest idea of what you are talking about when

it comes to bears and

wilderness. No

wonder you don't know anything about poaching.

 

You don't have many poachers in Anchorage I suspect.

Have you stopped to

consider Mr.

Doogan that Timothy and Amie were killed in their

camp. They were not killed

because

they were approaching a bear or photographing or

filming a bear. The bear came

into their

camp while they were in their tent and this could have

happened to anyone

camping in the

wilderness.

 

By the way, I see you avoided most of the points in my

letter to you and

retaliated where

you felt you had some ammunition like your " certainty "

about Diane Fossey's

academic

history.

 

As for trivial pursuits, I've got a real job. I don't

make my living disparaging

the dead to

suck up to the anti-nature crowd like you do.

 

Oh and by the way, since you asked, I am the Captain

of the Galapagos National

Park

Patrol vessel Sirenian for part of the year and the

Captain of the Conservation

research

ship R/V Farley Mowat (650 tons) for most of the rest

of the year. My nautical

skills and

qualifications are certainly sufficient to justify the

title. If you would like

a complete listing

of the ships that I have skippered since 1978, I will

provide it for you, just

so you don't

think that all I do is engage in trivial pursuits.

 

-Captain Paul Watson

 

2nd Response from Doogan:

 

Thanks for the message. So you're a THE Paul Watson.

That explains it.

 

Reply from Paul Watson:

 

I see Mike,

 

I guess you may have confused me initially with say

Paul Watson of the L.A.

Times. Some

would call him THE Paul Watson.

 

You say it explains it. What does it explain, Mr.

Doogan?

 

You do have a knack for avoiding questions. I guess

it's easier to make

assumptions.

 

I only have one request to make of you. Have a little

respect for the dead and

stop

slandering their names.

 

THE Paul Watson

 

3rd Response from Doogan:

 

Thanks for the message. A few points.

 

First, slander is spoken. You meant to write " libeling

the dead. " But you can't

legally libel

the dead. Aren't facts a bummer.

 

Second, I read the ode to Treadwell on the Sea

Shepherd website. It was based on

a couple

of startlingly false premises -- that he knew more

about grizzlies than anyone

else and

that he was responsible for saving them from poachers.

People who live in glass

houses ...

 

Third, I recognize that you, he and people like you

think you are doing

something

important and noble. I just don't agree. I see what

you are doing as

self-indulgent and

trivia and, essentially, unsustainable. Your romantic

views of nature are a

luxury that we

can't afford over the long term.

 

Fourth, to address the points you raised in your first

missive.-- I wrote:

" Fossey was a

trained naturalist. Treadwell wasn't. " That statement

is true, and remains true

despite your

attempts to demonstrate otherwise.

 

-- You said: " There is by the way no documented

evidence of anyone dying in

Glacier

National Park because they read Tim's book and

duplicated his activities. Was

this a

fabrication or just your spin on another incident

involving bears and people? " I

wrote

" According to one of his critics, this impressed a

couple in Glacier National

Park so much

that they imitated him by going off into the brush and

were killed by a bear. "

In its Oct. 8

story, the Anchorage Daily News reported: " Chuck

Bartlebaugh of " Be Bear

Aware,'' a

national bear awareness campaign, called Treadwell one

of the leaders of a group

of

people engaged in " a trend to promote getting close to

bears to show they were

not

dangerous.

 

" He kept insisting that he wanted to show that bears

in thick brush aren't

dangerous. The

last two people killed (by bears) in Glacier National

Park went off the trail

into the brush.

They said their goal was to find a grizzly bear so

they could 'do a Timothy.' We

have a trail

of dead people and dead bears because of this trend

that says, 'Let's show it's

not

dangerous.' ''

 

-- You wrote: " Were you aware Mr. Doogan that Tim and

Amie were scheduled to

have left

Katmai but had to stay to keep an eye on a poacher in

the area? are you aware

Mr. Doogan

that this case is still under investigation and all

the facts are not yet in?

There is a

possibility that the offending bear may have been

wounded. And if so, by who? "

But, then,

we've already dealt with that, haven't we.

 

-- You wrote: " I am an Alaskan also. " So you've been

living outside Ketchikan

for a few

years and you think that makes you an Alaskan? You'll

never be an Alaskan. You

have city-

bred ideas about nature will always disqualify you

from that.

 

Anyway, it's been fun. Try to stay out of jail.

 

-Mike Doogan

 

Final Reply to Mike Doogan from Paul Watson:

 

For your information Mr. Doogan, I have no criminal

record so I should have no

problem

staying out of jail.

 

Again you do not know of what you speak - I have lived

in Misty Fjords since

1998 but I

spend most of my time at sea. During the last year

this included three months in

Antarctica and six months on the Pacific. I was raised

in a small fishing

village. I was not

raised in a city so stow the urban dwelling crap. I

have been traveling around

Alaska since

1971, from Ketchikan to Nome from Adak to the Yukon

border.

 

Thanks for the correction on the slander. Point taken

I'll correct myself and

request that

you stop libeling the dead.

 

We stand by the statements on our web site and deny

they are based on false

premises

 

I have no doubt that you disagree with me. Your

anti-nature anthropocentric

rhetoric

demonstrates exactly where you stand. However it still

does not justify you

disparaging

the reputations of two people who cannot defend

themselves from your remarks in

your

media.

 

Your utilitarian view of nature is the luxury that

this planet cannot afford

over the long

term. I have no romantic views of nature. My actions

are based on the

understanding of

ecological laws like diversity, interdependence and

finite resources.

 

I believe that Timothy Treadwell was a trained

naturalist. He kept records of

his

observations and the Leakey family thought highly of

him, just as they did Diane

Fossey

and Jane Goodall. Physical anthropologist Marc Gaede

knew Tim Treadwell and he

states

that he was indeed a trained naturalist.

 

Your accusation that Tim was responsible for the

deaths of two people in Glacier

national

Park is based on hearsay. Tim Treadwell never

advocated for people to approach

closely to

bears. In fact he advocated that people keep a

distance from bears.

 

Finally you say that the people who live in cities are

true Alaskans and we

wilderness

advocates are " faux Alaskans " yet you accuse me of

being a city bred person.

According to

your previous comment this would make me a 'true

Alaskan " . But alas I am not

city bred.

I'm from a small maritime fishing village - lobsters

actually. So what is it

Mike - what is a

true Alaskan? Did I ever say that you were not? You

seem to be the judge and

jury on this. I

think your idea of a true Alaskan is one who shares

your values and agrees with

you.

 

You did not understand a thing about Timothy Treadwell

so don't pretend to

pigeon hole

me.

 

You say it's been fun. I say that attacking the dead

is not fun - it's sick and

cowardly and I

refer you again to the quote from Roosevelt that you

did not seem to understand.

You are

a cold and timid soul my " true Alaskan " friend.

 

-Capt. Paul Watson

 

Final Word:

 

After this, I did not hear back from Mr. Doogan, the

expert on Alaska, bears and

supposedly Timothy Treadwell. Let the man know that

you support Timothy's work

and

that is attack on Tim and Amie is cowardly and shallow

 

Mike Doogan can be reached at Tel: 907-257-4350 or

Email: mdoogan

 

Thank You,

 

Captain Paul Watson

Founder and President

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

www.seashepherd.org

National Director - Sierra Club - Farley Mowat Institute

paulwatson