Among Grizzlies: Living with Wild Bears in Alaska | 
| Authors: Timothy Treadwell, Jewel Palovak
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  94 reviews
Sales Rank: 294651
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st Ballantine Books Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.5
ISBN: 0345426053
Dewey Decimal Number: 599.78409798
EAN: 9780345426055
ASIN: 0345426053
Publication Date: February 2, 1999
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Amazon.com
Alaska has a population of more than 30,000 grizzly bears, almost all that survive in the United States. It makes sense that Australia-born bear lover Timothy Treadwell would make his way there, then. Among Grizzlies records his adventures among Alaskan bears over the last 10 years, and adventures they are: being awakened at dawn by curious grizzly cubs, being treed by irritated mama bears, being sized up by huge males as if for a midday snack. Treadwell's affection for Ursus arctos horribilis is abundant in these pages, and even if other grizzly specialists question aspects of his up-close-and-personal approach, you'll learn quite a lot about the bears in his book.
Product Description
Living with Wild Bears in Alaska
"A heart-stopping eco-adventure, a testimony to both the grizzlies and their courageous protector."
--People
"The grizzly bear is one of a very few animals remaining on earth that can kill a human in physical combat. It can decapitate with a single swipe or grotesquely disfigure a person in rapid order. Within the last wilderness areas where they dwell, they are the undisputed king of all beasts. I know this very well. My name is Timothy Treadwell, and I live with the wild grizzly. . . ."
After Timothy Treadwell nearly died from a heroin overdose, he sought healing far from the trappings of civilization--among wild grizzlies on the remote Alaskan coast. Without gun, two-way radio, or experience living in the wild, armed only with the love and respect he felt for these majestic animals, Treadwell set up camp surrounded by one of nature's most terrifying and fascinating forces of nature.
Here is the story of his astonishing adventures with grizzlies: soothing aggressive adolescents, facing down thousand-pound males, swimming with mothers and cubs, surviving countless brushes with death, earning their trust and acceptance. In these incredible pages, Treadwell lives a life no human has ever attempted, and ultimately saves his own. To share his experience is awesome, harrowing, and unforgettable.
"LIKE AFRICA NATURALIST JANE GOODALL, TREADWELL GIVES PERSONAL NAMES TO HIS SUBJECTS. . . . Bears have distinct personalities, Treadwell shows, and as a group, individual roles become clearly defined by gender, size, and age."
--The Seattle Times
With twenty-nine photographs
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| Customer Reviews: Read 89 more reviews...
 A curiosity piece April 10, 2008
This review is for the hardcover, which I found in my local library. I had seen the movie "Grizzly Man," so I was curious about this book. I agree with other reviewers that this is more about Treadwell than the bears. If the reader wants a lot of information about bears, you won't really find much here. The writing style is more like a diary than anything else. The photos are good (not numerous), but would have been much better printed in color. The movie shows that Treadwell was a pretty good still photographer as well as a videographer; a coffee-table book with his bear photos would be an interesting idea.
One thing I noticed immediately when I opened the book was that Treadwell apparently lied to his publisher about his age. The year of birth in the book (in the catalog info area) is wrong. It's kind of odd for a man to lie about his age, trying to seem younger than he is. That alone gives you some insight into his character. By his own admission he had been a drug user and alcoholic; according to people who knew him, he was bi-polar. Not the kind of person who should be dealing with large, wild animals. The key reason he survived as long as he did is that most of the bears had ample food readily available to them. His death was at the paws of an old, underweight bear which was trying to fatten itself for hibernation. Treadwell knew exactly what he was doing when he went back to the "grizzly maze" that late in the year. After seeing the movie twice, and his last video (a soliloquy in the grizzly maze) a third time, I now think he was consciously or subconsciously choosing suicide by bear. It is unfortunate that his girlfriend stayed with him - I suspect she cared more about hurting his feelings by leaving than about protecting herself, and may have had an unwarranted belief in Tim's ability to protect her, even without so much as bear spray. The fact that he refused to carry bear spray shows he wasn't really rational. Also, I agree with other reviewers who said that he didn't protect the bears; he actually made their lives more dangerous by habituating them to human beings.
I wouldn't recommend buying this book, but if you've seen the movie, you might want to check this out of your local library to get a little more verification of the kind of person Timothy Treadwell was.
 He went where no man has gone before, RIP my friend November 21, 2007
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I know that Timothy had his problems but I just admire the way he escaped alcoholism and a miserable life and most likely death in the concrete jungles we call cities and found his own personal paradise and happiness living in nature. He integrated himself succesfully in a community of bears and he did this for 13 years, no one gets lucky for 13 years straight, the man was obviously onto something.
He knew all the risks very well and he assumed them, he had no delusions there, he knew that what he was doing was a high risk activity and that the bears could kill him.
We shouldn't berate him more than we should berate a surfer who drowned or who was eaten by a shark, a climber who fell or froze to death etc.
Timothy was a lot like Steve the Crocodile Hunter who died killed by a stingray fish while doing what he loved most.
We should all understand that these are high risk activities and people die sometimes. RIP Timothy and God Bless.
Experiences with bears October 31, 2007
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I loved this book! I was completely captivated by the author's experiences. Mr. Treadwell seemed, at first, to be very experienced and knowledgeable. Later on, though, I had a feeling of suspicion regarding his methods. His experiences seem like something everyone would want to have, but then reality sets in and you realize that what he was doing was really not very safe for the bears at all. Photographing and watching from a distance made sense, but sleeping in the midst of a feeding area? I don't think so. The book began with hopeful optimism, but ended with a feeling of doom. I would recommend this book to others, though.
no death wish; gotta respect him; turned life around mostly; an endearing "flake" January 12, 2007
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
He really didn't have a death wish like some reviewers have postulated. He took lots of precautions; if he'd truly had a death wish he could've gotten killed a lot easier, a lot quicker. Until seeing Herzog's documentary, Grizzly Man, I hadn't realized what a flake Tim was. But I've always loved flakes; they're usually endearing to me. I've known plenty of flakes before; they're "characters" really.
Tim pushed the envelope; he took risks; no doubt about it. But I admire him for the risks he took. I wouldn't take them, but he lived a more intense, exciting, deeply meaningful life than I do, I think, which is okay, for me, and for him.
Tim was not a scientist; never claimed to be. But his close contact and extensive observation gave him some knowledge and insights that other more academically trained professionals didn't have.
I have to admire anyone who pulls himself out of the gutter, out of addiction and depression and meaninglessness, like Tim did, and finds a purpose and a passion and a joy to life. He wasn't perfect. He was still vain (talking in the documentary about how good a lover he was! there was something so revealing about human nature in that: no matter how far away from civilization and convention one gets, it's hard to give up the ego, the vanity, the self-consciousness), he was angry (his rants against the forest service were a little uncomfortable, a little scarey, a little obsessive), and he probably lead Amie Huegenard on (he wasn't into her as much as she was into him). I wouldn't want to be Tim. But again, I usually am impressed by people who break out of the regular 9-5 world I'm trapped in and do something different, difficult, anachronistic, unconventional.
The ironic thing, that no one seems to mention, is that Tim shouldn't even have been there when they were killed. If you'll remember they had left for the season, but missed a conecting flight, and since the next flight wouldn't leave for about a week, went back to the Maze, and then they were killed the night before the pilot was supposed to come back for them.
Another thing I respected about Tim was his vegetarianism. He didn't want animals to suffer at the hands of man! His beliefs were consistent in this regard. He definitley anthropomorphized all animals, especially Timmy the Fox and the grizzez but that's consistent with a reverence for all animal life, the crux of an ethical vegetarian's beliefs. I wouldn't have needed to anthropomorphize the animals like Tim did (I'm a vegetarian too) but that was Tim's personality. He was in touch with his feminine side, that's for sure. I was a little surprised how at times he was so effeminate. It didn't bother me. It wasn't that extreme. It was still in very healthy bounds.
Was Tim a real problem? Did his presence habituate the bears to humans? Did his activities make it more likely that a bear would end up being a problem bear and consequently killed by humans? I think we have to admit that he did put the bears in a more dangerous situation than if they had never seen a human. Sure, we all know the best thing any of us could ever do for these bears is to never have any contact with them, get off the planet even. But, was one person, Tim, way up where he was, really going to make that much of a difference? I don't think so. Sure we couldn't have many more people like Tim up there doing what he did, that's for sure. So Tim was selfish; he did it, probably knowing that he shouldn't really being doing it, that the bears couldn't afford to have other humans doing what Tim did. But he couldn't help himself. It's like a lot of things. We all know we shouldn't drive cars so much, it's bad for the environment, for example, but we do it anyway, because our individual effect is small, but when all of us are put together, driving, we're polluting at a terrible rate.
And the question about whether there were poachers there, and was Tim protecting the bears from the poachers? I believe Tim greatly exaggerated the poaching, probably to justify what he knew he really shouldn't have been doing, as a way to rationalize his intimate presence amongst the bears. Was he delusional? Did he really think there was a big poaching problem? Any poaching problem? My bet is he didn't really believe poaching was a big problem, but he probably thought it might become a problem if he wasn't there. Something like that.
Those are some of the issues I found in the book, which I read over a year ago, and haven't thought of for a long time. But it's such a great subject, Tim, the bears.
Spiritual November 9, 2006
4 out of 9 found this review helpful
"Among Grizzlies" is a very inspiring and spiritual book.
I strongly disagree with those who think that the author is just a psycho trying to get killed by bears.
He sure lived his life to the fullest, but who could blame him for doing what he loved for a living?
I'd kill to be in his shoes!
Turning your passion into your job!
Treadwell had a dream, and he fulfilled it. It's not everybody's luck.
In the book there are many statements that expose the author's inner personality. He was an addict, blessed by the gift of bears.
Inspired by them, he eventually found his way out of the addiction of alcohol.
It is my believe that Treadwell was a wild soul adrift in the ocean of today's society.
Living among bears helped him get in touch with his soul, that's for sure.
I highly recommend this book to all those who like Treadwell feel as if they don't belong but in the wild.
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