Grizzly Man: Whodunit?

I e-mailed this to my family this morning, and then realized it might be interesting as a blog post. Essentially, I have my own theory on what happened to Timothy Treadwell, who is featured on the Discovery Channel special "Grizzly Man"... Oh, it is apparently also available on its own on DVD.

From the e-mail, "Discovery Channel has had on a program a few times now called GRIZZLY MAN. It is the story of an enviromental activist who tried to live with the Alaskan grizzly bears the way that Jane Goodall did with the apes. Of course, he was not there so much to study as to chase off hunters, report poachers, and generally "protect" the group that he found. The reason it makes an interesting movie is that (1) the guy did all the filming himself, and (2) after 13 years of filming the bears, he wound up being killed by one of them. It is a controversial film, primarily because it seems to glorify what the guy did (which broke Federal wildlife protection laws, and violated the traditions of the local Eskimos as well) and because it turns out that another innocent died there, too, his girlfriend who had warned him about the bears. I recorded it on Sunday on EyeTV, and watched it yesterday. It was interesting to me for two reasons: (1) he essentially tamed the local foxes (they treated him like the master to dogs) and (2) the filmmaker and the friends who reacted to the film afterward missed a major piece of their puzzle, in my opinion. The film talks a lot about how the eco-guy appeared to almost have a death-wish with the bears - that he knew how dangerous living with them was, and how if he had to choose how he'd die that he'd choose to die out there with them. They had a round-table with the friends afterward, where they criticized the filmmaker and also criticized the girlfriend who died with him. Essentially, their theory of it all was that he died as he lived, one of the bears just snapped, and the girl should have known what she was getting into. What they all miss is that it is likely the relationship with the girl is indirectly what killed him. They read a bit from his diary from the last year, and it turns out that he was very in love with this girl, but she wanted to marry him and go back to civilization. Which would mean leaving his bears... at least for more of the year than he was used to. The last year of film has many of his rants about "I would never leave my bears!" But to my ear, it is not a proclamation of defiance to the girl. It is him having an argument with himself. The "last gasp of freedom" that we men do, before we finally decide to commit to a relationship. I think he was preparing to marry this girl, and give it all up for her. And that changed how he acted towards the bears, likely making him more likely to be defiant in protecting her. And he says many times in the years before he died that you have to walk a fine line with bears - strong enough to deter aggression, but meek enough to not invite challenges. I suspect he could not find the meekness, and this lead to a confrontation where a 120 lb man had little chance against a 2-ton bear. I find it interesting that no one even mentions this possibility. But maybe I am wrong and just don't know the guy. But it was pretty obvious to me."

I don't know if any other Mod-Bloggers have seen the program. But I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.