I went on a Grizzly Man return deep dive the other day and found the autopsy reports and ranger reports. Those rangers had a very scary time returning to that scene. There is a lot to be learned here.
> Wes: There’s audio recording of him dying. My advisor listened to it. I’ve never listened to it, but it’s 15 minutes of him being dismantled by a bear. You can hear his arm being separated from his body in it. It’s the worst possible way to go.
God, I remember watching the scene in "Grizzly Man" in which Werner Herzog listens to this exact audio recording. Even via proxy, it's very hard to stomach.
> It's the most terrifying thing I've ever heard in my life. Being shocked like that, I told her, "You should never listen to it, and you should rather destroy [the tape]. It should not be sitting on your shelf in your living room all the time."
Dont worry, not a violent attack. This is a black bear digging into a girl's kayak as she yells at it. Notice how the bear ignores her pleadings. I have personally shouted at and scared away bears (bc, black bears). They do respond. But once they decide you are not a threat, or heaven help you food, they will ignore any noise you make. This girl's high-pitched squeals fall on deaf ears. The fuzzy dog-like intelligent animal becomes a monster.
Fyi, the girl's progressively higher pitch may do well to attract help from other humans, but wont work on a predator. You want to sound intimidating and big, not small and weak. Of course you aren't ever going to sound bigger than a grizzly in feeding mode. At that point your only hope is something unnatural like a bearbanger (firework) gunshot or metallic sound, something to break the predator's confidence. Sounding like food won't help.
How can someone tell, in an audio recording of a man being eaten by a bear, that at one specific point, you are hearing his arm being separated from his body? I'd like to think that he narrated it while it was happening. But imma call BS on this one.
I read once that the root word that evolved into all the modern Indo-European variants of bear began as a euphemism to avoid having to say the creature’s name and risking summoning it. It meant something like “the brown one.”
In English, and other Germanic language, it comes from the brown one. In Slavic languages bears are called honey eaters. In other languages though like Welsh they don't appear to have had the taboo and use a deririvative of the older PIE word, which is thought to be something like rktho.
Biologists often have a lens for the world that I deeply admire. This one was a very éloquent intetviewee. They were very humanizing as well as empathetic and analytical in their discussion of Treadwell. They were also pragmatic about what it all means in context for the bears and the world. What a person.
I was interested to see that this link was flagged the other day after getting around 15 upvotes but no comments. Pleased to see it back as I thought the post was worthy of a read.
Watching this film set me off in a Herzog marathon - amazing director.
(edit - a little researching and I see this is the same post that I vouched after it was flagged, pleased to see the system lets good links back)
<Watching this film set me off in a Herzog marathon - amazing director.>
While in Alaska for the shoot, Hertzog took the time to address students at the U of Alaska in Anchorage. It was in the evening, in a teeny classroom, with only a few people there.
The only thing I remember (man, that was awhile ago) was how personable Herzog was. He told the story of his start, that when he was just a very young teenager, he stole (stole!) a rather expensive camera to shoot his first story. "You stole it?" someone conversationally asked? "Yes, I REALLY wanted to film," Hertzog gleefully replied.
He recounts this story in his book, Every Man for Himself and God Against All, which is a cracking read. The audiobook is narrated by him, so I imagine that would be worth a listen (not done it myself). I had the privilege to see him talk in London several years ago, and the thing that struck me from both the talk and the book, was how curious he is is about things, and his general attitude of just trying to do the things he was interested in regardless of obstacles, exploring his ideas, no matter how hard, outlandish or crazy they were.
There is a part of me that strongly identifies with the "Grizzly Man" and Supertramps of the world. Yeah, often they make stupid decisions and go into things unprepared. But they are willing to go into the unknown in a way the vast majority of society is not. They are trying to experience the world as humans throughout history have experienced the world. And their experience ending in their death isn't the condemnation that people seem to think it is. Because that's where we all end up. And they reached that point by doing things that were not just outside of their comfort zone but the comfort zone of every normie in this country. They are easy to ridicule from the safety of a youtube video, but these people actually lived in these places and experienced these things in a way the vast majority of modern humanity never will. It's easy to judge. It's far more difficult to live in a way that defies society. Even when those lives are cut short, I think it's worth exploring and celebrating. They were trying to buck the trend. They were real hackers in a way most on this site cannot really comprehend.
Being stupid and selfish should not be celebrated at all but warned against!
He did not understand bears, just saw them how he wanted them to be and actually did them a severe disservice!
Going outside of you comfort zone is valuable though, but only if done with knowledge of your own limits and consequences!
e.g. I live in the Alps and we have much too many stupid tourists' emergencies in the mountains due to ignorance than should be. They know nothing about the mountains, the tour, how weather is up there, what equipment and clothing to bring and wear and completely disregard advice of locals.
Then Mountain Rescue risk their lives and health to get them down. Most of them volunteers no less!
But how is it the unknown if anyone with half a brain can predict what will happen to them?
> these people actually lived in these places and experienced these things in a way the vast majority of modern humanity never will
That is true, but it is not like the only way to experience the wilderness is by being reckless. There is a ton of people enjoying this kind of thing without getting bears killed for no good reason.
Being reckless and going off unprepared is a different type of experience. You can't have the same experience if you come prepared.
Yes, you might die, but while you're alive you're really living.
I'm quite comfortable living an ordinary comfortable life and preparing in advance for novel experiences, but I'm glad some people throw caution to the wind and chance it. It takes all sorts to make the world.
> They are trying to experience the world as humans throughout history have experienced the world.
There was a critical difference between these cases. Early humans grew up within nature so they had a lot of skill and knowledge. I loved Into the Wild and thought I identified with Christopher McCandless too. But the way he packed was not conducive with survival. He sadly didn’t know enough to know how much danger he put himself in.
There is a lot to mourn and a lot to learn. But there’s really nothing to celebrate - these were complicated people who behaved like they had a death wish. Early humans had a survival wish and while it didn’t always work out, the motivation was different.
>> They were real hackers in a way most on this site cannot really comprehend.
Oh we all know what this was. It was someone doing something stupid and filming it. He can pretend that he was studying behavior but he broke that mirror when he started interacting with bears. This was someone creating footage in order to market that footage and support his lifestyle, no different than people in wingsuits doing dangerous stunts for clicks. Both were "experts" in the thing they were doing, right up until that thing killed them.
I don't say I identify with him but I have some respect and even admiration for McCandless, because I think I understand his feelings from what I've read and watched about him, but I don't have the same feeling for Treadwell though
Nah, McCandless deserves no respect or admiration at all. He was arrogant, and he died, and someone else had to drag his decomposed corpse out of the bus.
At least he didn't get his girlfriend eaten by a bear I suppose.
Upvote, though I'm not a fan of "can't comprehend"
But broadly, Nassim Nicholas Taleb's work changed my thinking a bit on when I see people doing brave (and/or perhaps goddamn stupid) stuff like this. Skin in the game is powerful.
There is something to be said for -- "as long as you're ONLY putting yourself in harm's way, do your thing."
Again, I think playing around with bears is dumb as all hell, but for (an admittedly different) example, I no longer make fun of the Lifelock guy. Went from idiot to hero in my book.
Supertramp wasn't "going outside the comfort zone of normies", he was making very bad, very stupid decisions that inflicted suffering on those he loved.
Oh, and the people who had to recover his corpse.
Yeah, fuck those normies and their "maps" and "bushcraft relevant to their ecosystem", this guy was the real deal huh.
No point in learning from others, just wing it and die a pointless needless death.
> I think it's worth exploring and celebrating.
I feel that this points to a certain existential angst you may be feeling, but please let me assure you that dying alone and scared like these two munters is not the way to resolve it.
And for the love of all that's holy, please stop romanticising selfish idiots.
The only nice thing I can say about Supertramp is that he didn't directly endanger anyone else, unlike the guy who got his girlfriend eaten by bears.
>They are trying to experience the world as humans throughout history have experienced the world.
Except this isn't really true. Humans throughout history are invariably tribal, not solitary. Their solitary pursuits are in many ways profoundly modern and in keeping with the entire tradition of solipsistic modernity.
> these people actually lived in these places and experienced these things in a way the vast majority of modern humanity never will.
But...so? The same could be said if they moved to any developing country (I live in a developing country) but nobody is valorising that in the same way.
This silly reddit narrative, invented to push a political viewpoint, is utter hogwash. There have always been individuals living a solitary lifestyle- explorers and homesteaders, scouts, traders, hunters and fishermen.
I don't identify with it at all, but I'm glad some people do.
When we finally get our shit together and send people to Mars despite that being a one-way trip, I'm glad there will be volunteers who will sign up for that and go be pioneers. I hope they get a school named after them.
Except these "Grizzly Men" and Supertramps of the world can only do what they do because society has enabled them to do that. Try living that life without any technology, transportation, modern outdoor equipment, drugs/medications, etc. It's an unproductive and essentially narcissistic way of living, whereas hackers create. This is precisely why Timothy had to build this ridiculous fantasy of him being the protector of these bears, whereas in fact it was him who needed the bears to satisfy his egomania.
What is definitely wrong in this article is the claim, that only bears eat living prey. Also wolves do that. There are many cases where wolves attacked animals (cows, sheep, deer), and as soon as those are immobilized, start feeding. Sometimes these animals survive with horrible wounds. Many images and videos can be found via google.
Nature is brutal, we should all be really thankful that we get to die in a bed being made as comfortable as possible. For every other animal in history death was almost guaranteed to be something scary and painful.
I doubt that statement was meant to be some kind of absolute rule, big cats will definitely eat you alive if they feel like it. But at least you are perhaps more likely to get a quick death..
The advice I grew up with (in swedish bear country) is to do these things, in order:
1. Make noise while in the woods, bears will generally avoid you if they know you are there. You don’t want to startle a bear.
2. If charged, stay calm, make yourself big and talk to the bear, move slowly.
3. If attacked, play dead.
With luck, the bear will lose interest once it doesn’t perceive you as a threat. If it’s hungry, well, bad luck. There have been cases of people scaring bears off by punching them in the nose, so as a final resort I guess that’s something to try.
I think it is extremely common in the animal world, if not the default. Thinking of other biomes Fish and reptiles almost always do it. I suspect anything which a substantial size difference does it and it is only avoided when you have pretty that is very dangerous to the predator.
Yep. That keeps happening e.g. in the mountains in northern italy. Cows with huge wounds stumble back from the field, it's horrific. And when the farmers kill a wolf it's an outpour of indignation from animal welfare :/
Mastiff dogs are the real culprits in more cases that people would expect. Had been videotaped doing exactly this. A wolf pack will kill the prey, two mastiffs just bite, sit and wait watching the cow die. They can't kill the cow efficiently.
They will respect animals in their "family" herd, but don't have this restriction against cattle from other herds or species that are not defending, specially when not feed accurately by the owners (If they guard sheep they can still see young cows as fair game).
The main difference between wolves and shepherd dogs is that dogs aren't neither afraid to cows or men.
Readit News
https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/foia/upload/03-109_KATM_Treadwel...
God, I remember watching the scene in "Grizzly Man" in which Werner Herzog listens to this exact audio recording. Even via proxy, it's very hard to stomach.
https://youtu.be/IP2BQLOWi4M?si=yy76XPhS6woyyA86&t=170
In Herzog's own words:
> It's the most terrifying thing I've ever heard in my life. Being shocked like that, I told her, "You should never listen to it, and you should rather destroy [the tape]. It should not be sitting on your shelf in your living room all the time."
Dont worry, not a violent attack. This is a black bear digging into a girl's kayak as she yells at it. Notice how the bear ignores her pleadings. I have personally shouted at and scared away bears (bc, black bears). They do respond. But once they decide you are not a threat, or heaven help you food, they will ignore any noise you make. This girl's high-pitched squeals fall on deaf ears. The fuzzy dog-like intelligent animal becomes a monster.
Fyi, the girl's progressively higher pitch may do well to attract help from other humans, but wont work on a predator. You want to sound intimidating and big, not small and weak. Of course you aren't ever going to sound bigger than a grizzly in feeding mode. At that point your only hope is something unnatural like a bearbanger (firework) gunshot or metallic sound, something to break the predator's confidence. Sounding like food won't help.
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Also, joints make a distinctive noise when being... decoupled. But I suspect the narration may have helped nail down which joint was in play.
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Watching this film set me off in a Herzog marathon - amazing director.
(edit - a little researching and I see this is the same post that I vouched after it was flagged, pleased to see the system lets good links back)
While in Alaska for the shoot, Hertzog took the time to address students at the U of Alaska in Anchorage. It was in the evening, in a teeny classroom, with only a few people there.
The only thing I remember (man, that was awhile ago) was how personable Herzog was. He told the story of his start, that when he was just a very young teenager, he stole (stole!) a rather expensive camera to shoot his first story. "You stole it?" someone conversationally asked? "Yes, I REALLY wanted to film," Hertzog gleefully replied.
Impish, obliquely egotistical, kind and gifted.
He's the most palatable example of a Nietzsche-an superman
He did not understand bears, just saw them how he wanted them to be and actually did them a severe disservice!
Going outside of you comfort zone is valuable though, but only if done with knowledge of your own limits and consequences!
e.g. I live in the Alps and we have much too many stupid tourists' emergencies in the mountains due to ignorance than should be. They know nothing about the mountains, the tour, how weather is up there, what equipment and clothing to bring and wear and completely disregard advice of locals. Then Mountain Rescue risk their lives and health to get them down. Most of them volunteers no less!
I can't imagine what disservice was done. A guy hung around bears for a while, and one ate him and his girlfriend.
To the bears literally nothing happened of note.
But how is it the unknown if anyone with half a brain can predict what will happen to them?
> these people actually lived in these places and experienced these things in a way the vast majority of modern humanity never will
That is true, but it is not like the only way to experience the wilderness is by being reckless. There is a ton of people enjoying this kind of thing without getting bears killed for no good reason.
Yes, you might die, but while you're alive you're really living.
I'm quite comfortable living an ordinary comfortable life and preparing in advance for novel experiences, but I'm glad some people throw caution to the wind and chance it. It takes all sorts to make the world.
There was a critical difference between these cases. Early humans grew up within nature so they had a lot of skill and knowledge. I loved Into the Wild and thought I identified with Christopher McCandless too. But the way he packed was not conducive with survival. He sadly didn’t know enough to know how much danger he put himself in.
There is a lot to mourn and a lot to learn. But there’s really nothing to celebrate - these were complicated people who behaved like they had a death wish. Early humans had a survival wish and while it didn’t always work out, the motivation was different.
Oh we all know what this was. It was someone doing something stupid and filming it. He can pretend that he was studying behavior but he broke that mirror when he started interacting with bears. This was someone creating footage in order to market that footage and support his lifestyle, no different than people in wingsuits doing dangerous stunts for clicks. Both were "experts" in the thing they were doing, right up until that thing killed them.
At least he didn't get his girlfriend eaten by a bear I suppose.
But broadly, Nassim Nicholas Taleb's work changed my thinking a bit on when I see people doing brave (and/or perhaps goddamn stupid) stuff like this. Skin in the game is powerful.
There is something to be said for -- "as long as you're ONLY putting yourself in harm's way, do your thing."
Again, I think playing around with bears is dumb as all hell, but for (an admittedly different) example, I no longer make fun of the Lifelock guy. Went from idiot to hero in my book.
Wow, really.
Supertramp wasn't "going outside the comfort zone of normies", he was making very bad, very stupid decisions that inflicted suffering on those he loved.
Oh, and the people who had to recover his corpse.
Yeah, fuck those normies and their "maps" and "bushcraft relevant to their ecosystem", this guy was the real deal huh.
No point in learning from others, just wing it and die a pointless needless death.
> I think it's worth exploring and celebrating.
I feel that this points to a certain existential angst you may be feeling, but please let me assure you that dying alone and scared like these two munters is not the way to resolve it.
And for the love of all that's holy, please stop romanticising selfish idiots.
The only nice thing I can say about Supertramp is that he didn't directly endanger anyone else, unlike the guy who got his girlfriend eaten by bears.
Except this isn't really true. Humans throughout history are invariably tribal, not solitary. Their solitary pursuits are in many ways profoundly modern and in keeping with the entire tradition of solipsistic modernity.
> these people actually lived in these places and experienced these things in a way the vast majority of modern humanity never will.
But...so? The same could be said if they moved to any developing country (I live in a developing country) but nobody is valorising that in the same way.
When we finally get our shit together and send people to Mars despite that being a one-way trip, I'm glad there will be volunteers who will sign up for that and go be pioneers. I hope they get a school named after them.
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Good point though!
All those pretty birds you see are like one mistake and bit of bad luck from being ripped to shreds—at all times. Yikes.
The advice I grew up with (in swedish bear country) is to do these things, in order:
1. Make noise while in the woods, bears will generally avoid you if they know you are there. You don’t want to startle a bear.
2. If charged, stay calm, make yourself big and talk to the bear, move slowly.
3. If attacked, play dead.
With luck, the bear will lose interest once it doesn’t perceive you as a threat. If it’s hungry, well, bad luck. There have been cases of people scaring bears off by punching them in the nose, so as a final resort I guess that’s something to try.
And horses¹. And deer².
1. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnYNmGMsU18>
2. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQOQdBLHrLk>
Dead Comment
They will respect animals in their "family" herd, but don't have this restriction against cattle from other herds or species that are not defending, specially when not feed accurately by the owners (If they guard sheep they can still see young cows as fair game).
The main difference between wolves and shepherd dogs is that dogs aren't neither afraid to cows or men.