[PenultimateManStanding]

Have you seen this documentary? Timothy Treadwell spent 13 years in the outbacks of Alaska filming grizzly bears before being eaten by one. He comes across as a delusional fool. Seems like a perfect metaphor for modern humanity. No concept of what reality is. Steeped in sentimentality, lost to facts. Just to hear his voice tells you all you need to know.

[Plantagenet]

Treadwell was a jerk and an idiot. I never met him, but I've spent time in the same areas on the Alaska Peninsula where he travelled and was killed along with his girlfriend. Right after he was killed I was down there and talked to people who knew him. They universally despised him.

A lot of city people from the lower 48 travel to Alaska for a couple of weeks in the summer filled with romantic illusions about animals and wilderness. They all go back home by the time hunting season starts here. Treadwell was a very extreme case, but his views about wildlife were not unique.

[I_Like_Plants]

Oh yeah my local library has it, great movie! Another good one, not a movie but a book, is about a kid who tramped around the US, was a real "flower child" not so much in looks but in outlook, who went up to Alaska and was found dead in an old bus, kid ate the wrong plant, and that and rabbit starvation got him - he wasn't eating his grease'n'guts!

[hubbertspeak7777777]

Apparently, the bears couln't stand him either, so they ripped him several new assholes.

I remember hearing about that back in '03 and I laughed my ass off. I can't feel sorry for someone that stupid. It's like that guy who who got his leg bitten off by a shark while filming a documentary about how "misunderstood" sharks are. These people need to realize that wild animals are not sweet little puppies, they are savage beasts who won't hesitate to rip you apart.

[Plantagenet]

I've got sympathy for that poor kid...he wasn't nearly as stupid as Treadwell. He died only about 40 miles off the main road north of Denali National Park. Its a nice place to go hiking and mountain biking and ATV riding and moose hunting and lots of people go there....but not for the two months he was there. He hiked in just before the ice went out on the rivers, and then the river was too high and he couldn't cross it and get back to the road. He was nicely set up with books and a gun and some food to camp for awhile, but eventually the food ran out. He tried to eat some local roots, and may've eaten the wrong thing and poisoned himself. Hunters who were scouting around got in there on ATVs and found him only a few days after he died. Sad really.

[I_Like_Plants]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'I')'ve got sympathy for that poor kid...he wasn't nearly as stupid as Treadwell. He died only about 40 miles off the main road north of Denali National Park. Its a nice place to go hiking and mountain biking and ATV riding and moose hunting and lots of people go there....but not for the two months he was there. He hiked in just before the ice went out on the rivers, and then the river was too high and he couldn't cross it and get back to the road. He was nicely set up with books and a gun and some food to camp for awhile, but eventually the food ran out. He tried to eat some local roots, and may've eaten the wrong thing and poisoned himself. Hunters who were scouting around got in there on ATVs and found him only a few days after he died. Sad really.

[The_Toecutter]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hese people need to realize that wild animals are not sweet little puppies, they are savage beasts who won't hesitate to rip you apart.

[Newsseeker]

I tried to be friends with pirhanas once but now I need to wear the claw. It really surprised me that they were angry. Oh well, time to go over to my neighbor's yard and pet his pit bull.

[seldom_seen]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newsseeker', 'I') tried to be friends with pirhanas once but now I need to wear the claw. It really surprised me that they were angry. Oh well, time to go over to my neighbor's yard and pet his pit bull.

[The_Toecutter]

Who here likes spiders!?

[I_Like_Plants]

I actually like spiders, although I do know they are what they are and can bite - especially if given a good reason.

I was once turning over in bed and turns out some member of the wolf spider family was innocently walking across me, minding his/her own business, when I flop my arm down on 'em. Well of course they bite me and I sqush 'em, then I lie in bed a while and think about it, and decide I'd better find that spider, because if it's got a little violin on it or something the spider and I are going to the emergency room - nope, just some wolfish spider, and I showed off my little twin fang marks to my extremely spiderphobic housemate in the morning.

Spiders just are what they are. So are sharks, sting rays, moray eels, "cloth of gold" cone shells, and all that shit I grew up with. Oh yeah and lion fish, I kept one as a pet for bit, no I sure did not try to pet the little bugger!